Poland: Cemex Polska awarded an eight-year contract to Statkraft to supply wind and solar energy for its cement plants. The parties signed a corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA), under which Statkraft will meet 30% of Cemex Polska’s plants’ energy consumption, beginning on 1 January 2025.

Cemex Polska director cement operations Tadeusz Radzięciak board member “The concluded contract is important for Cemex on several levels. The contract ensures stable supply of a large volume of electricity, while at the same time securing a guaranteed, predictable level of prices for supplied energy in the long term. This is particularly important in the context of the rapid and unpredictable changes in energy prices on the European and Polish energy markets recorded in the last several months. In addition, the partnership with Statkraft is crucial in the context of achieving the Cemex's sustainability goals. After all, sourcing energy from renewable sources enables a significant reduction in the carbon footprint of our production facilities.”

France: Ireland-based Ecocem hosted a symposium on the application of new materials technologies in cement production on 14 November 2023. Participating materials scientists published a statement calling on the global cement industry to make use of alternative materials to achieve CO₂ emissions reductions. In the statement, they said “It is no longer possible to say that we lack the technology or that the costs are prohibitive.”

Greece: Titan Cement reported increased sales during the first nine months of 2023. They grew by 14% year-on-year to Euro1.89bn. Sales rose by 24% in Greece and Western Europe, by 16% in the US and by 13% in Southeast Europe. However, they fell by 5.9% in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Meanwhile, the company’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 72% to Euro397m. Group net profit more than doubled to Euro198m. Titan Cement maintained a level of capital expenditure in line with that in the first nine months of 2022, at Euro158m.

Titan Cement maintained its positive growth outlook for the full year in 2023, but expects to experience the effects of an anticipated ‘temporary cooling’ in global economic activity in 2024. The producer said that Euro8bn-worth of investments in on-going infrastructure projects in Greece will likely help to offset these effects locally.

Albania: The government will raise the tax on coal by a factor of five, to Euro0.15/kg. EmergingMarketWatch News has reported that the measure will bring Albania’s industrial products into line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s recommended minimum emissions tax of Euro55.8/t CO2. Without this, exporters to the EU would have to settle the difference.

Northern Region Cement announced this week that it is planning to build a new cement production line in Iraq. It has signed an engineering, procurement, and construction deal with Germany-based KHD and its parent company AVIC for the supply of a 1.3Mt/yr production line. The contract has been valued at US$139m with a duration of 16 months, suggesting that the earliest the new plant might be commissioned would be from early 2025.

The Saudi Arabia-based company operates an integrated cement plant at Arar in Northern Borders Province and an integrated plant at Muwaqar, near Amman, in Jordan. It also took over a grinding plant in Basra, Iraq, in 2017 and runs this via its Um-Qasr Northern Cement subsidiary. It has not been disclosed so far where the new production line in Iraq will actually be or what type of equipment is being supplied. However, the price suggests a clinker pyro-processing line.

The timing of this project is noteworthy as it follows a number of other such announcements so far in 2023. In mid-August 2023 China-based Sinoma International Engineering said that it had signed a US$219m deal with Al-Diyar Company for Cement Industry and Industrial Investment to build a 6000t/day clinker production line with a 50MW captive power plant. The project is located in the Samawah area of Al Muthanna Province. First clinker production is scheduled from mid-2025. This followed the start of construction at another project in the Erbil province in the Kurdistan region of the country in June 2023. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani laid the foundation stone for a new 6000t/day cement plant. The DCCP Cement and Power plant is being built by local partner Dabin Group and China-based China Power Investment Corporation (PowerChina).

In May 2023 Pakistan-based Lucky Cement revealed that it was preparing to build a second production line at its integrated plant at Samawah. It runs the plant under the Najmat Al Samawah joint venture together with UAE-based Al Shumookh Group. The first 1.31Mt/yr line at the plant was started up in 2021. It said that the new proposed 1.82Mt/yr production line was intended to take advantage of renewed economic activity in Iraq, benefit from increasing numbers of construction projects and further supply clinker to Lucky Cement’s grinding plant joint-venture at Basra. Construction work on the new line was expected to start by September 2023 with a completion date scheduled by mid-2025. Earlier still in March 2023 the Iraqi General Cement Company signed a deal with Turkey-based Zodiac for the latter to build a new 1.8Mt/yr plant at the Hammam Al-Alil Complex in Nineveh Governorate.

The Cement Manufacturers Association in Iraq (CPA) has reported various meetings in 2023 it has held with the Minister of Industry and Minerals with the aim of supporting the sector. In March 2023 it was discussing developing a five year plan to increase cement production with the aim of surpassing a capacity of 40Mt/yr. For reference the Global Cement Directory 2023 placed local capacity at just under 10Mt/yr. Then, in June 2023, the conversation had moved on to talking about awarding new licences to build plants on a regional basis, warnings that capacity is growing too fast and setting standards.

All of this is positive news 20 years on from the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the insurgency that followed. The local economy has benefited from high oil prices and a period of political stability, followed by infrastructure investment. Holcim runs two cement plants in Iraq via its Lafarge Iraq subsidiary and it noted “strong domestic cement demand” in the country in 2022. The number of new cement plant projects so far in 2023 underlines a new confidence in the market. Unfortunately the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip threatens to undermine the previous period of calm should hostilities spread. However, the news from Northern Region Cement about its proposed new plant suggests that some level of business confidence remains for now.

India: Shree Cement has appointed Suresh Rathi as its Chief Logistics Officer and Sushrut Pant as its Head of Marketing.

Rathi is a mechanical engineer who holds a master of business administration (MBA) in finance. He holds over 30 years experience in supply chain, finance project management and information technology in the building materials, mining and metal sectors.

Pant holds a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He has worked in the fast-moving consumer goods and cement sectors.

Tajikistan: President Emomali Rahmon has officially opened Tojikcement’s new plant in the Ismoili Somoni district of Dushanbe. The 1.2Mt/yr cement plant will replace the company’s existing production site in the city which is due to be closed. Products manufactured at the new unit will include cement of sulfate 500 and 400 brands. Construction work on the new plant started in 2019 and China-based Jiangsu Pengfei and Linsen was the main contractors.

South Africa: The Competition Tribunal has received a recommendation from the Competition Commission that it should allow aggregates producer Afrimat to acquire Lafarge South Africa. Creamer Engineering News has reported that the commission found that the merger involves ‘horizontal overlaps’ in the aggregates and ready-mix concrete sectors. As such, it recommended that the parties be required to divest assets across the affected sectors.

Tanzania: Mbeya Cement plans to reform its board of directors and appoint a new chair. The measures are part of an agreement between the government and other shareholders, including Zambia-based Lafarge Cement. Daily News has reported that the government helped Mbeya Cement to pay off US$67.9m-worth of debt.

Holcim’s East and South Africa area manager Rajesh Surana said “It is another milestone as we today sign the agreement on behalf of other shareholders, aimed at ensuring that Mbeya Cement operates on profit to rebuild growth for improved performance.”

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Cement’s sales rose by 9% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2023, to US$288m from US$264m. The producer’s net profit also rose, by 13% to US$73.9m from US$65.1m.