Global Cement News

India: UltraTech Cement has renamed its Binani Cement subsidiary UltraTech Nathdwara Cement. The leading Indian cement producer finally acquired Binani Cement in late November 2018 when the Supreme Court supported the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) approval of its bid for Binani Cement following a legal fight with a consortium led by Dalmia Bharat group.

Binani Cement’s production assets include a 4.85Mt/yr integrated plant at Nathdwara and a 1.4Mt/yr grinding plant at Neem ka Thana, both in Rajasthan. The company also operates plants in China and the UAE. UltraTech Cement’s acquisition will increase its production capacity in the north of the country to around 24Mt/yr, increase its access to limestone reserves and offer it synergies in logistics and procurement.

India: JSW Cement is planning to target the north and north-east of the country after a proposed initial public offering (IPO) in 2020. The company is looking for acquisitions in the region to meet its production capacity target of 20Mt/yr by 2020, according to a company executive quoted by the Economic Times newspaper. The cement producer has purchased two limestone mines via auction at Nagaur in Rajasthan and one in Gujarat. It is also considering building new cement plants near the mines. The company has a production capacity is 12.8Mt/yr at present.

Uzbekistan: Local company Jo'ydam Tamir Qurilish and three Chinese partners have started building a 1.2Mt/yr cement plant at Bulakbasinsky in the Andijan district. Shangfeng, Tunli and Beijing Triumph International Engineering are the Chinese companies in the project dubbed ‘Shangfeng-Bridge of Friendship.’ The total cost of the project is around US$420m and the first stage of construction is planned for completion by 2020. A later expansion at a cost of US$215m is planned from 2020 to 2023.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Provision data from the Banque Centrale du Congo (BCC) shows that local cement production grew by 24% year-on-year to 531,000t for the first half of 2018 from 428,000t in the same period in 2017. Consumption grew by 43% to 539,000t from 378,000t. The country currently has a cement import ban in place and no exports have been recorded by the BCC since mid-2015.

Egypt: Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer is expanding its Gebr. Pfeiffer Egypt subsidiary. The local company was founded in 2015 after a sustained presence in the country. The engineering company has now decided to enlarge its subsidiary to meet current and anticipated customer demand. It intends to turn Gebr. Pfeiffer Egypt into a regional hub for Gebr. Pfeiffer customers from across the Middle East and African (MEA) area.

The local company is led by managing director Ahmed Essam. The services offered by the office team will now include sales, production and delivery, project management, supervision and aftersales and additional customer services.