Global Cement News

Russia: AlfiGroup has revived a cement plant in Dorogobuzh, Smolensk region that was closed a decade ago. The relaunch is scheduled for March 2018, according to the Beton Russia news website. The company has spent Euro6.3m on the reopening. The plant will produce up to 0.3Mt/yr of clinker by the third quarter of 2018 and production will be developed until 2020. Around 200 jobs will be created.

Russia: Tattsement plans to complete the construction of its new cement plant in the Alabuga special economic zone in the Republic of Tatarstan before the end of 2018. The 0.6Mt/yr unit will produce nanomodified cement, according to Nezavisimy Stroitelny. Drying machines and a mill have been purchased for the project.

Chile: Cementos Melon financial results for 2017 have been hit by a contraction in the local construction market. Both cement and concrete sales volumes were reduced, according to the Diario Financiero newspaper. Its sales fell by 14% year-on-year to US$298m in 2017 from US$345m in 2016. Its profit dropped by 54% to US$14m from US$30m. The company says that it has constrained fixed costs, logistics and administration to compensate.

Mexico: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s (GCC) sales grew by 23.6% year-on-year to US$925m in 2017 from US$749m in 2016. The group attributed this to strong demand in both the US and Mexico, as well as the integration of the operations acquired in Texas and New Mexico at the end of 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDA) rose by 32.3% to US$250m from US$189m.

In the US sales rose by 29.8% year-on-year to US$180m in the fourth quarter of 2017, representing 76% of the group’s consolidated net sales. The growth reflected higher cement sales volumes in the states of Texas, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Mexico and Colorado. Fourth quarter sales volumes also benefitted from favourable weather conditions throughout GCC’s area of operations. The most dynamic segments in the regions where GCC operates were oil well drilling, residential real estate and public-sector construction. For the year as a whole, excluding the operations acquired in 2016, cement volumes increased 2.1% in 2017.

In Mexico sales rose by 22.6% to US$58.4m in the fourth quarter of 2017. This was attributed to rising cement prices with growth in the mining and self construction sectors and the final stages of several industrial projects. For the year as a whole sales rose by 11.4%.

Russia: Eurocement Group plans to spend Euro31m on upgrade work at two cement plants in the Leningrad region. It will allocate Euro14m towards work at Pikalyovskiy Cement and Euro17m at Peterburgcement, according to the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper. New milling equipment with additional filter will be installed at Pikalyovskiy Cement, and one of the plant’s two mills will be closed. This will allow the enterprise to raise the output of premium cement, decrease its production cost, and reduce emissions. A gas-piston thermal power with a capacity of 24.9MW will be built at the Peterburgcement plant.