Global Cement News

Germany: Schenck Process has appointed Keith Cochrane as chairman and Harry Kenyon-Slaney as a member of its Advisory Board. The appointments follow the completion of Blackstone’s acquisition of the measuring and process technology equipment company.

Cochrane is currently the interim chief executive officer (CEO) of Carillion, prior to which he served as the CEO of the Weir Group, a manufacturer of highly-engineered products and services for the minerals, oil and gas and power industries. He joined Weir as Finance Director in July 2006 and was appointed CEO in November 2009. In 2015, Cochrane was appointed as the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Director for the Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General. He is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Cochrane was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and appointed CBE in 2016.

Kenyon-Slaney is currently Non-Executive Chairman at Gem Diamonds having been appointed in June 2017. He holds over 33 years of experience in the mining industry, principally with Rio Tinto. Until 2015, Kenyon-Slaney was a member of the Group Executive committee of Rio Tinto where he held the roles of CEO of Energy, and before that CEO of Diamonds and Minerals. Kenyon-Slaney also serves as a senior advisor to McKinsey & Co.

In addition, Lionel Assant, Juergen Pinker and Saleh Panahi, all of Blackstone, have been appointed to the Advisory Board.

US: Motion Industries has made three appointments to its management with effect from 11 December 2017.

Randy Breaux has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Marketing, Distribution, and Purchasing. In 2016, he was promoted to his most recent position of Senior Vice President of Marketing, Distribution, and Purchasing. He joined Motion Industries in 2011 as Senior Vice President after over 20 years at Baldor Electric.

Kevin Storer has been promoted to Executive Vice President of US Operations and President of MI Mexico, and will maintain responsibility for all field branch sales in the US and Mexico. He began his career with Motion Industries in the West Group in 1987 before being promoted in 2016 to his most recent position as Senior Vice President of US Operations and President of MI Mexico.

Mark Stoneburner has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Industry Segments and Business Development. He joined Motion Industries in 2016 as Corporate Account Vice President - Industry Segments, bringing with him 33 years of industry experience. Stoneburner will continue to share responsibility for merger and acquisition (M&A) strategy.

Motion Industries is an industrial parts distributor of bearings, mechanical power transmission, electrical and industrial automation, hydraulic and industrial hose, hydraulic and pneumatic components, industrial products, safety products, and material handling. It is a subsidiary of Genuine Parts Company based in the US.

Pakistan: A new production line at Attock Cement’s Hub plant in Balochistan has started operation. The line has a cement production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and it increases the company’s total production capacity to 3Mt/yr. The line was first announced in 2015 at a cost of US$120m. Loesche provided a cement mill for the project in 2017 under contract from the Hefei Cement Research & Design Institute.

Bangladesh: Lafarge Holcim Bangladesh has completed its purchase of Holcim Cement Bangladesh for US$60.2m. The deal includes three cement grinding mills with a total production capacity of 2.2Mt/yr. Lafarge Holcim Bangladesh, formerly known as Lafarge Surma Cement, is a joint venture between LafargeHolcim, Cementos Molins and other local partners.

Vietnam: The Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation’s (Vicem) cement sales rose by 3% year-on-year to 26.6Mt in 2017. 23.6Mt of cement and clinker were sold locally and 3Mt were exported, a drop of 3%, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. In 2018 the state-owned cement producer plans to produce 19.7Mt of clinker, a rise of 2%, and to sell over 28Mt of cement and clinker, a rise of 4%. The company intends to focus on ‘high-efficiency’ products to reach this target.