Global Cement News

Germany: Thomas Spitzenpfeil has been appointed as the chief financial officer of Schenck Process Group with effect from 1 October 2018. He will also join the management board of the company. Spitzenpfeil will be responsible for the company’s global finance and IT organisation and will work alongside Andreas Evertz, president and chief executive officer (CEO). He will replace Eric Jaschke as CFO, who has decided to leave the company at the end of 2018 for personal reasons.

Spitzenpfeil has 14 years’ experience as the CFO of large international businesses in the manufacturing sector. For the past eight years, he was the CFO of Carl Zeiss, the global technology group in optics and optic-electronics with 27,000 employees.

He started his career at Robert Bosch in 1990 and thereafter held various commercial roles at VIAG, Kodak and Hydro Aluminium/VAW-Aluminium. Prior to joining Carl Zeiss AG, he served for six years as the CFO of Zumtobel in Austria. At Carl Zeiss, his role comprised responsibility for finance and controlling, audit and risk management, consolidation and accounting, IT, digital innovation, financial services, facility management, logistics, central production and US shared services.

Jaschke joined the company in 1999 and held various roles with focus on local and international accounting and controlling responsibilities in Germany and Australia. He was appointed as CFO of Schenck Process in September 2015.

Germany: Schmersal Group has appointed Andreas Balack as the new manager of its South Germany sales region. The 44-year old holds over 20 years of sales experience with knowledge of the plastics processing sector. He previously worked as the deputy sales manager at a company selling safe automation technology. At Schmersal he manages a team of 25 people, comprising customer service employees, product managers and engineers.

Vietnam: The Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) exported the majority of its cement sales in the first half of 2018. The government-owned cement producer’s sales rose by 10.1% to 14.2Mt, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. However, 11.7Mt of this figure was exported. The company’s cement and clinker production rose by 8.5% to 10.2Mt and 6.4% to 11.6Mt respectively.

Vietnam: The government of Quang Ngai has threatened to shut the Dai Viet-Dung Quat cement plant if it does not improve its dust emissions. 107 households living within 50m of the unit have been moved but more than 1600 households remain close to the site, according to the Vietnam News Agency. The 0.5Mt/yr cement plant started operation in 2015.

Australia/Bangladesh: Australian Bauxite has negotiated a letter of intent with Bangladesh’s Aziz Group. As part of the agreement it will use Aziz Group as its agent to market cement-grade bauxite in the country. The deal will also see Australian Bauxite supply chemical-grade bauxite to Aziz Group for the manufacture of polyaluminum chloride to be used in the treatment of industrial waste water.

"There is a real opportunity for our well established trading and manufacturing relationships to be of significant support in the marketing of this specialised Australian Bauxite cement-grade bauxite. We look forward to jointly developing a good market base for real supply opportunities,” said Johnny Chowdhury, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Aziz Group

Australian Bauxite operates a bauxite mine in Tasmania. It also holds mining tenements in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania for future development.