Global Cement Newsletter

Issue: GCW437 / 08 January 2020

Headlines


Last month Soyuzcement, the Union of Russian Cement Producers, reported that cement production was on course to grow by 8% year-on-year to 58Mt in 2019. This estimate was based on growth from January to October 2019 followed by a modest rise in November.

Graph 1: Cement production in Russia, 2010 – 2019. Source: CM Pro, Ernst & Young. 

Graph 1: Cement production in Russia, 2010 – 2019. Source: CM Pro, Ernst & Young.

The pickup is significant because it’s the country’s first annual resumption of growth since 2014. At that time low commodity prices, a worsening economy and international sanctions broke a fairly steady growth cycle that had started in 2000. The only blip in that run was the global economic downturn around 2008. In the medium to long term Soyuzcement’s review pinpointed growth drivers as being government-backed residential housing schemes, integrated land development projects and an increase in the construction of concrete roads. This increase has been driven by consumption growth in most regions, led by a 12% rise in the Central Federal District although the Volga Federal District started to slow in the second half of 2019.

Figure 1: Russian Federal Districts by cement production in 2016. Source: Soyuzcement.ru. 

Figure 1: Russian Federal Districts by cement production in 2016. Source: Soyuzcement.ru.

Anecdotally, this change in the fortunes of the Russian cement industry can be seen in the volume of news coverage on the Global Cement website over the last few years. The mean number of news stories on the country in 2016 and 2017, increased by half in 2018 and then again in 2019. Partly this is down to our attempts to increase our coverage of the region but it also shows a general trend. In the news specifically there haven’t been many new plant projects domestically but there has been a steady stream of upgrades and maintenance related stories. For example, Eurocement subsidiary Kavkazcement reported in recent weeks that it had installed a replacement dry kiln. This has been part of a group of upgrades that Eurocement has started in 2019. On the supplier side both Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer and Italy’s Bedeschi opened subsidiaries in Russia in 2019.

One thing that didn’t seem to slow down the growth were mounting tariffs on Russian exports into Ukraine. Russia’s neighbour first blocked imports of cement from Russia in May 2019 due to, what it said was a Russian ban on imports. It then followed this with an antidumping rate of 115% for imported clinker and Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from Russia. It also penalised imports from Belarus and Moldova, although at lower rates. Russia’s cement export rates seemed untroubled by this, rising by 13.5% year-on-year to 0.8Mt in the first 10 months of 2019. Exports hit of high of just below 2Mt/yr in 2014 but have since stabilised at around 1Mt/yr. Imports reached around 5Mt/yr in the early 2010s and have been slowly declining since then, reaching 1.5Mt in 2018.

The lowered production rate that the Russian cement industry has faced over the last five years has been noteworthy given the apparent low capacity utilisation rate. The Global Cement Directory 2019 records the country as having a production capacity of 111Mt/yr. This gives Russia a capacity utilisation rate of 48% in 2018! Unlike, say, the countries in southern Europe that have had to rationalise their cement industries following the post-2008 decline, Russia may have structural aspects to the industry that have helped protect it from lower utilisation rates. These include relatively low export-import rates and the large size of the country with limited sea access to many regions. Most of its production capacity is located in the west but a sizable minority of plants are based further east across the Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern regions. Even under subdued economic conditions, plants in these places are likely to be less susceptible to foreign imports, for example.

Looking ahead, the question is whether the current growth that the cement industry is enjoying is viable once government spending slows down. Alongside this the industry could also focus on sustainability. As the government announced in early January 2020, the country expects to face both negative and positive effects from climate change. The cement industry could be at the front of this trend if it decides to clean up production and/or move into new markets as the Arctic region opens up.


Nigeria: Dangote Cement has appointed Michel Puchercos as its new chief executive officer (CEO) and group managing director. He succeeds Joseph Makoju, who will retire at the end of January 2020.

Puchercos holds over 20 years of experience in the cement industry, having served in various roles at Lafarge including president and CEO of Lafarge Halla Cement, Director of Strategy and Systems at Lafarge Gypsum and CEO of Bamburi Cement in Kenya, Hima Cement in Uganda and chairman at Mbeya Cement in Tanzania. His last appointment was as the Group Managing Director and Country CEO of Lafarge Africa.


Canada: McInnis Cement has appointed Baudouin Nizet as its president and chief executive officer (CEO) with immediate effect. He succeeds Jean Moreau, who worked as the interim president and CEO since mid-2018.

Nizet career in the cement industry, includes working at CRH Canada / Holcim Canada as Senior Vice President for Quebec and the Atlantic Region from 2006 to 2013 in Montreal, then in Toronto as president and CEO from 2013 to 2017. Until recently, he was Senior Vice President at Stuart Olson Building Group, a construction company based in Calgary. In addition to serving as a director of the Cement Association of Canada for several years, he also served until 2017 as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canada Green Building Council, responsible for LEED certifications in eco-responsible constructions.

McInnis Cement has also appointed Alex Wojciechowski as its chief operating officer. Wojciechowski holds over 30 years of experience as a manager in the cement industry in Canada and in the US. He has held various positions ranging from Maintenance Manager to Plant Manager to Industrial Manager. His expertise covers both cement operations and constructing and commissioning industrial equipment investment projects.


Trinidad: Guillermo Rojo De Diego, the general manager of Trinidad Cement, has taken over responsibility for the company’s subsidiary, Readymix (West Indies). It follows the reassignment of the former general manager Nigel Tozer to a new role within Cemex Group.


Finland: Metso has appointed Giuseppe Campanelli as President, Minerals Services business area and a member of its executive team. Previously he was a member of the Minerals Services business area management team heading Professional Services. It has also appointed Kalle Sipilä as President, Pumps business area and a member of the executive team. Prior to this, he was operationally in charge of the pumps business area in addition to his role as head of Finance and Business Control of the Minerals Services business area.

The new appointments follow the resignation of Mikko Keto, Metso’s former president of its Minerals Services and Pumps business areas.


UK: Bunting has appointed Alan Why as its UK Sales Manager overseeing all external sales activity. His engineering career began as a radio-frequency (RF) electronics design engineer and evolved into the role of Sales & Marketing Director of a small electronics company serving the defence electronics market. Why has developed magnet-related business for Bunting since he joined the company in 2013. The responsibilities of his new role cover a wider product range including magnets, magnetic separators and metal detectors.

Bunting is a designer and manufacturer of magnetic separators, metal detectors, magnets, magnetic assemblies and magnetising equipment. The Bunting European manufacturing facilities are in Redditch, just outside Birmingham, and Berkhamsted, both in the UK.


UK: Cemex has entered a conditional agreement with Breedon Group for the divestment of certain UK assets, including 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries and a cement terminal for Euro211m including Breedon Group’s assumption of Euro27.3m lease liability. Cemex UK retains the 1.2Mt/yr Rugby cement plant in Warwickshire. Breedon Group CEO Pat Ward said, “We expect the deal to be accretive to both earnings and free cash flow in the first full year, with a positive ongoing impact on the cash generation of the enlarged Group.” Cemex CEO Fernando Gonzalez said that the transaction ‘further rebalances our portfolio into our core markets, enhances our profitability and enables us to continue to focus on deleveraging.’

The businesses being handed over also include concrete products operations, depots and asphalt plants and fall under all six of Breedon Group’s regional divisions. Ward has said the acquisitions will significantly enlarge the group’s footprint in underrepresented divisions, implying that the cement terminal in question may be the Leith terminal in Scotland or the Newport terminal in Wales, two regions in which the company currently has no terminals to receive cement produced at its 1.5Mt/yr integrated Hope cement plant in Derbyshire. Breedon Group will seek to hire employees working on the operations from Cemex and expects to bring its total UK personnel to 3600 people as a result. It says its mineral reserves will exceed 1.0Bt.

Cemex UK retains 259 concrete plants and 36 aggregates quarries and dredging operations. Cemex said it ‘will retain a substantial integrated business in the UK encompassing cement production.’


US: The attorney’s office of Harris County in Texas filed a lawsuit against Sesco for alleged public safety and environmental violations following multiple complaints to the Harris County Pollution Control Board about dust. Piles of debris in an outdoor area of Sesco’s Houston cement terminal may have caused high dust levels in and around the facility and high pH levels in water located nearby. Houston Business Journal conjectured that the stockpiles might consist of surplus cement being stored unlawfully. Sesco stands accused of operating two silos and three hoppers without proper environmental clearance. Inspections in 2019 uncovered set cement in storm drains at the facility.


Iran: Shahrood Cement Company, which operates a 1.9Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Shahrood in north-eastern Iran, produced over 0.2Mt of cement over the nine month period ending 21 December 2019. Semnan province Industry, Mine and Trade Organisation chair Behrouz Asvadi said that all of the cement produced by the company was exported to countries on the Caspian Sea as well as to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Revenue over the period was US$5.06m. The company is meeting to discuss issues in shipping and crediting.


US: Holcim US’s 1.9Mt/yr Portland cement plant in Colorado has become the latest site to host a large-scale cement plant carbon capture and storage (CCS) study. Holcim US, in partnership withCanada-based Svante, France-based Total and US-based Occidental subsidiary Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, will install a facility designed to capture 0.73Mt/yr of CO2, which Occidental will take for safe storage underground. The study will assess the financial viability and design requirements of such an installation on a permanent basis.


Argentina: The total volume of Argentine cement sold in 2019 was 11.1Mt – down by 6.1% year-on-year from 11.8Mt in 2018. The year’s economic recession and currency devaluation hit December’s sales especially hard, with just 0.74Mt sold, of which 0.11Mt was exported. Esmerk Latin American News has reported that Argentina was self-sufficient for cement in 2019, with no imports throughout the year.


Austria: RHI Magnesita has published details of a planned raw materials plant in Austria. The company will spend Euro40m in the construction of the Dolomite Resource Centre Europe for the processing of raw local dolomite into sintered dolomite for use in refractory products at Hochfilz in the state of Tyrol. State Governor Günther Platter and French ambassador to Austria François Saint-Paul joined local folkloric figures Krampus and Saint Nikolas in breaking ground at the site of the future plant, which will be the source of dolomite for all RHI Magnesita European operations from 2021. The plant is part of a raft of projects totalling Euro300m in additional investments by the Austria-based refractory products manufacturer in 2020.


Iran: Cement producers in Iran reported growth of 22% year-on-year in exports of cement and clinker over the eight months between 21 March 2019 and 21 November 2019 to 11.4Mt from 9.34Mt. The Financial Tribune newspaper has reported that 37 countries received Iranian cement or clinker over the period. The leading importers of cement were Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Clinker markets included Iraq, the UAE and China.


Namibia: China-based West China Cement concluded a sale and purchase agreement for Germany-based Schwenk Zement subsidiary Schwenk Namibia for US$104m on 3 January 2020. The Nambian newspaper has reported that the deal is awaiting clearance from authorities. Schwenk Namibia holds a 70% stake in Ohorongo Cement. Singaporean authorities stopped the sale of Schwenk Namibia to Singaporean-based International Cement Group (ICG) in September 2019 due to the latter’s inability to cover the losses of the Namibian company.


Bolivia: Empresa Minera Industrial’s 0.1Mt/yr integrated cement plant has resumed operations across both dry lines following a fuel shortage. Tinformas has reported that a natural gas shortage caused the suspension of operations in November 2019 following an attack on a pipeline.


India: Market researcher Fortune Business Insights has forecasted market growth of 5.2% in the cement industry to US$463bn in 2026 from US$313bn in 2019. It conjectured that global improvements in road quality and investments in high-grade products will drive growing demand. The industry will meet this demand through advances in cement production and a reduction in the number of companies consolidating operations.

In India, the government’s ‘Housing for All by 2020’ scheme is set to kick-start consumption.

Fortune Business Insights' report is available here.


Oman: Alsahawa Cement Company (ACC), the newly-founded Oman Cement Company (OCC) subsidiary, will operate the group’s upcoming Duqm cement plant, for which an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract tender has been issued. Bidding is due to close on 27 February 2020.

The new facility will include a coal-fired power plant and waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant. OCC Chief Executive Officer Salim Abdullah Al Hajiri described the commissioning of the 1.7Mt/yr integrated plant as a ‘reverse integration’ process, whereby the plant will initially grind clinker produced at other OCC cement plants beginning in September 2021 before upgrading to fully integrated cement production in March 2022.


Pakistan: Producers increased second-half cement volumes in 2019 by 6.5% year-on-year to 24.8Mt from 23.2Mt between 1 July and 31 December 2018. Domestic consumption grew by just 3.5% between the two periods under comparison to 20.4Mt from 19.7Mt, causing exports to rise by 22% year-on-year to 4.38Mt in 2019’s second half from 3.56Mt one year previously. The Nation newspaper projected Pakistan’s total volumes in the financial year ending 30 June 2020 of 47Mt/yr against an installed capacity of 60Mt/yr.


China: Three cement plants in Dali, Yunnan province with a combined capacity of 5.0Mt/yr and belonging to Dali Cement (Group), Dali Hongshan Yunnan Cement and Hongta Dianxi Cement have ceased all functions except the packaging of existing cement in order to stop polluting the area of Erhai Lake. The shutdown was mandated by the City of Dali and Dali Economic Development Zone authorities in mid-2017. Xinhua Net newspaper has reported that the removal of kilns is underway and that demolition on all three sites will have been completed by 31 May 2020. The companies will be permitted to construct plants of corresponding capacities at allotted sites elsewhere.


Kenya: East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) has defaulted on contractual loan repayments to KCB Bank after auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that the Kenyan company made a loss of US$28.0m in the twelve months to 30 June 2019, over which time it produced 0.3Mt of cement against an installed capacity of 1.3Mt/yr.


India: Emami Group has indicated that it will receive bids for its cement division Emami Cement from mid-January 2020. Business Standard newspaper has reported that Aditya Birla’s UltraTech Cement is likely to submit an offer in the region of US$0.94bn for the company – over 20% lower than Emami Group’s previously projected evaluation of US$1.18bn for Emami Cement. It also reported the possible involvement of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim’s Ambuja Cements in the upcoming auction.


Vietnam: Vietnamese cement producers increased their output of cement by 7.9% year-on-year to 96.5Mt in 2019. Volumes in December 2019 were 8.7Mt – up by 12% from 7.8Mt in December 2018, when the country produced 90.2Mt throughout the year. Vietnam News Brief Service has reported that in 2019, 34Mt of cement and clinker was exported from Vietnam – up by 6.3% year-on-year from 32.0Mt in 2018 – with a total value of US$1.39bn – up by 11% from US$1.25bn.


India: Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty has announced an infrastructure-spending plan consisting of US$102tn expenditure before 30 April 2025. Iran Daily has reported that this includes an investment of US$13.6tn in the 12 months to 30 April 2019 - up by 36% from US$10.0tn in the previous 12 months to 30 April 2018. 25% of the investment will go to the energy sector and 19% spent on roads, 16% on urban infrastructure, 13% on railways and 8% on rural infrastructure and innovation. The Business Standard newspaper has suggested that slow growth in domestic demand in late 2020 may cause cement production capacity utilisation to return to a level above 70%.


Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Kavkazcement has installed and commissioned a dry kiln to replace its reserve kiln at its plant in the Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia. The new kiln is part of a Euro5.79m investment which will increase the current 3.1Mt/yr integrated plant’s capacity by over 40% to 4.4Mt/yr when commissioned in mid-2020. Oleg Lopatin, Kavkazcement director general, said “A significant increase in the plant’s workload was made possible by the high demand for our cements.”


Nepal: Cement produced by Hongshi-Shivam cement, a joint venture of Shivam Group and China’s Hongshi Cement, failed to meet the mandated 30-minute initial setting window in tests conducted by the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology (NBSM). Gulf Daily has reported that the NBSM will pursue legal action against the company.


Iceland: Iceland Cement has invested Euro0.1m in a specialised washboard for cement trucks. The installation includes strainers for both solids and oil. The company emphasised its social responsibility to keep the trucks, a ‘prominent feature’ in the local area, clean.


China: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has included Huaxin’s former Huangshi integrated cement plant site on its third annual National Industrial Heritage (NIH) list. The site includes three wet kilns, a warehouse, a bagging facility, slurry tanks and stone dumps. 49 disused sites from various industries were listed for NIH status, which ensures state-funded preservation and protection from demolition, on 26 December 2019.


China: Allied Minerals has commissioned a refractory production plant in Tianjin, 5km away from its existing plant in the city in Hebei province. Former Allied Minerals corporate vice president Tom Gibson explained: “We’ve built more than manufacturing plants and offices. We’ve built bridges.” The new plant will increase Allied Minerals’ supply of refractory products to cement producers in and around the city, which is located near the coast 100km from Beijing.


UK: Hanson’s ship Arco Avon has uncovered a mammoth tooth whilst dredging the seabed for aggregates for use in cement production off the east coast of Norfolk. Natural History Museum palaeontologists have identified the specimen has having belonged to a 35-year-old animal that died between 10,000 and 0.35m years ago. The dredging lane, 10km offshore from Great Yarmouth, has previously turned out mammoth vertebrae and a tusk fragment.


Egypt: Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Egyptian Tourah Portland Cement has said that it will accept offers for some items proposed for sale under auction of equipment from its decommissioned 1.0Mt/yr Tourah plant in Tura near Cairo, from which it expects to raise a total of Euro1.71m. The company said it had received ‘several bids.’ It stopped production in June 2019 due to its inability to cover costs.


Egypt: South Valley Cement’s sales in the nine months to 30 September 2019 were Euro19.2m - down by 47% year on year from Euro36.5m in the corresponding period of 2018. It lost Euro9.68m in the period compared to Euro0.94m in the same three quarters of 2018, representing a 940% increase in loss.


Angola: Chinese-based Sinotrans has exported 800t of cement on the 1344km railway journey from Cimenfort’s 0.4Mt/yr Lobito grinding plant to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Angola Press Agency has reported that the cement was ground from clinker produced in China. Cimenfort sales coordinator Francisco Idelfrides suggested that the cement company may look to expand its production capacity in 2020. He said it sold 0.3Mt of cement in eastern Angola and the DRC in 2019.


India: Several cement producers in Jammu and Kashmir are operating quarries and plants in the vicinity of Dachigam National Park without the mandatory no-objection certification (NOC) from the union territory’s Forest Department. The Deccan Herald newspaper named JK Cement, TCI Cement, Khyber Industries and Green Land Cement as companies that have as yet failed to apply for NOCs for plants in the area. The newspaper alleged political interference in favour of cement producers, publishing state government internal correspondence that gave the distances of Khyber Industries, TCI Cements, Saifco Cements, Dawar Cement, HK Cement and Cemtac Cements plants from the national park as 2.5km, 6.0 km, 3.0km, 6.0 km, 5.0km and 6.0km respectively. According to the source, the true distances are 2.2km, 3.4km, 2.3km, 3.6km, 4.0km and 4.9km and this is part of the state’s support for illegal cement production which constitutes a ‘politician-bureaucrat-cement mafia nexus’ which has enabled private companies to ‘flout norms with impunity.’


US: The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting public comment on a proposed shale-clay exploration project by Ireland-based CRH’s subsidiary Ash Grove Cement near its Clark Gulch quarry. The Observer has reported that the project would consist of construction of a 0.62km road and the extraction and transportation of a 10,000t sample. The window for comment closes on 3 January 2020.


Brazil: Ireland-based CRH has engaged the US-based bank Citigroup to seek buyers for its Brazilian business, which consists of the integrated 0.7Mt/yr Arcos plant and 0.6Mt/yr Cantaglo plant and the 1.0Mt/yr Santa Luzia grinding plant, according to the Brazilian Valor newspaper. CRH acquired the assets from Holcim and Lafarge at the time of the merger of the Swiss and French companies.


US: Ragland Town and St. Clair County administrators have approved France-based Vicat’s US subsidiary National Cement’s plans for a second kiln at its 1.9Mt/yr Ragland cement plant in Alabama, construction of which will begin in early 2020. Birmingham Business Journal has reported that National Cement, which has had legal permission to build a second line since 2006, has announced that the new kiln will enter clinker production in 2022 following a total investment of US$250. National Cement is Ragland’s largest employer, with a staff of 132 at the 111-year-old Ragland plant.


Kazakhstan: The government of the Almaty region in eastern Kazakhstan has announced that the construction of the Kerbulak cement plant, which began in May 2018, ends 2020 at 97% completion. The government and a Singaporean private company have installed preheaters, crushers, raw materials warehouses and a 25MW substation. The launch date of the plant is in March 2020. Of its 1.2Mt/yr cement yield, 80% will be sold on the domestic market, with 20% leaving Uzbekistan for Mongolia and neighbouring countries including China.


Spain: The Port Authority of Gijón granted Cemex España a 30-year concession for use of 2480m2 of the El Musel terminal for unloading, storage and bagging on 20 December 2019, subject to the Mexican company’s use of the facilities for a minimum of 50,000t/yr of cement and derived products for the first two years of the arrangement, 0.1Mt/yr for the subsequent three years, and 0.15Mt/yr thereafter. La Nueva España newspaper has reported that Cemex España applied for the concession in February 2019. Its plans consist of a Euro5.0m investment in a development including two 6000t-capacity silos, a 44m crane and bagging facilities. Cemex España will take an estimated 10 months to complete the works from beginning the project in early 2020.


Uzbekistan: The value of 11-month cement imports in the period ending 30 November 2019 was US$0.147bn, up by 12% year-on-year from US$0.132bn between 1 January 2019 and 30 November 2018. The total value of construction projects in Uzbekistan in the eleven months ending 30 November 2019 was US$61.4bn, up by 120% from US$51.2bn in the corresponding period of 2018. The total value of imported building materials was US$1.22bn, representing a 12% year-on-year increase from US$1.09bn. Cement was among US$152m of commodities imported to Uzbekistan from Iran, according to the Israel Defense newspaper.


US: A cement truck travelling on a busy road in Wilmington, Massachusetts, dumped part of its load onto the vehicle of another driver, with whom the truck driver had ‘got into an argument.’ According to the Boston Globe newspaper, the offending truck sped away, but police identified the driver through the cement company. They have charged him with negligent operation of a motor vehicle, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of malicious destruction of property, leaving the scene of a crash that caused property damage, a marked lanes violation and disorderly conduct.


Burkino Faso: The government has appointed Abdul Rahim, director general of Cim Metal subsidiaries Cimfaso and Cimasso a knight of the Order of Merit of Commerce and Industry for his contributions to domestic cement production.

Cimfaso operates a 1.2Mt/yr integrated plant and a 2.0Mt/yr grinding plant in Burkino Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou, while Cimasso operates one 2.6Mt grinding plant in the second city of Bobo-Dioulasso.


Australia: Adelaide Brighton’s court dispute with Concrete Supply has ended in a ruling in favour of the former. The Advertiser newspaper has reported that between August 2009 and November 2017 Adelaide Brighton supplied US$22.6 to Concrete Supply, for which Concrete Supply paid US$14.5 before entering administration in November 2017. Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko ruled that Concrete Supply ‘could not reasonably have held a genuine belief that it was entitled to the alleged discount or rebate.’


Brazil: Refractory products supplier RHI Magnesita has announced a raft of investments totalling Euro300m in addition to its annual Euro120m maintenance expenditure. The investment will cover projects in all its operating regions, including a new raw materials plant in Austria and ‘significant’ expansions to its Contagem complex in Brazil and Cuttack non-basic brick plant in India. It further stated that it will ‘build secondary raw material sorting, cleaning and production capabilites’ to absorb waste streams.


China: Huaxin Cement’s Guoditang quarry in Dongchuan district, Kunming has won the Chinese government’s ‘Green Mine of the Year 2019’ award after receiving total investments of US$0.9m for vegetation recovery. Huaxin integrates land reclamation and afforestation into its step-mining method at the quarry, using planting quilts, sprinklers and drip irrigation devices to recover 80,000m2 of vegetation so far. The company has estimated that the mine will continue to supply its limestone needs in the area until late 2033.

The National Civil Affairs Commission named Huaxin Cement a ‘National Model Unit for National Unity and Progress’ on 17 December 2019. It is the only building materials producer to have obtained the title.


US: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded 2019 Energy Star Certification to Italy-based Buzzi Unicem’s Chattanooga, Tennessee and Festus, Missouri plants and Alamo Cement Company’s San Antonio, Texas plant for achieving Energy Performance Indicator scores of over 75 and over three years’ satisfactory environmental compliance. This places the plants in the top quarter of ‘similar facilities’ for energy efficiency nationwide.


China: Anhui Conch has issued a request for tenders for a gypsum supply contract. The contract will cover the supply of synthetic gypsum produced by flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) to Anhui Conch between 1 February 2020 and 31 July 2020.


UK: Mick George Concrete has announced a contract with Highways England for the construction of ancillary features such as kerbs, drains and mass fill usages on the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge in early 2020. The project will utilise 500m3 of Cemfree concrete from DB Group (Holdings) ltd., which can be produced releasing just 20% of the CO2 of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The value of the project, to which Mick George Concrete has dedicated a 100t silo for Cemfree storage, is Euro1.76bn.


US: The Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), a joint initiative of CDP, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and WWF, has described Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim’s CO2 reduction targets as ‘adequate’ and ‘consistent with efforts agreed upon at the COP21 World Climate Conference in Paris.’ These are aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising by 2°C.

LafargeHolcim has committed to a 10% reduction in emissions from kiln and pre-heater fuel to 520kg of CO2 per tonne of cement in 2030 compared to 576kg/t in 2018. Over the same period it will reduce its indirect emissions from electricity consumption by 65%.


Spain: Total cement consumption fell to 1.1Mt in November 2019, down by 8.3% from 1.2Mt in the previous November. CIC Architecture and Sustainability Online has reported that this was 2019’s third month to show a decrease compared to 2018 figures, and the sharpest year-on-year decline so far. The year-on-year decrease for the 11 months to 30 November 2019 is 6.8%. Production failed to show growth, with imports bridging the supply gap. Clinker alone has grown by over 100% to imports of 0.5Mt in the same 11 months from over 0.2Mt in the corresponding period of 2018. Exports, which have declined over 30 consecutive months, fell by 30% year-on-year in November 2019 to under 0.5Mt from over 0.6Mt one year previously. This brings the decline for the year so far to 22% year-on-year to 5.8Mt from 7.4Mt in the first 11 months of 2018. Oficemen president Víctor García Brosa explained that energy prices were a contributing factor to Spain’s production problems. He said that electricity is ‘27% more expensive than in Germany or France.’


India: Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer has won a supply contract with UltraTech for one MVR 6000 C-6. The mill can grind up to 370t/hr of mixed cements or 225t/hr of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS). Gebr. Pfeiffer has stated that it is the 17th mill of its type in India. The company will assist its subsidiary Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) Pvt. Ltd. in commissioning the mill in early 2021.


Bulgaria: The Bulgarian government has terminated Devnya Cement’s concessionary contract for the extraction of quartz sand for cement production from the Selski Nivi deposit. SeeNews has reported that the company requested the contract’s termination due to alterations to its production strategy in response to market conditions.

In 2018, Devnya Cement generated a revenue of Euro70.3m, which translated into Euro8.65m profit.