Global Cement News

Germany: Minister Eveline Lemke has presented a medal for outstanding commitment to the economy in Rhineland-Palatinate to Irene Scheidweiler, one of the joint founders of Vecoplan. Lemke described Scheidweiler as a model for younger generations.

Scheidweiler founded the recycling technology firm based in Bad Merienberg in 1969, when she was aged 22. In 1995 Vecoplan AG became a subsidiary of MAX Automation AG of Dusseldorf. Today the company employs more than 400 staff at locations in Germany, the US, UK, Austria and Spain.

Dominican Republic: The Dominican Association of Cement Producers (Adocem) swore in Carlos Gonzalez as its president for 2013 – 2014. Gonzalez, who is also president of Cemex in the country, joins Gabriel Ballestas of Cementos Argos as treasurer and Jose Caceres of Cementos Cibao as secretary.

US: Texas Industries (TXI) has announced that its board of directors has named Tom Ransdell as its chairman of the board effective from 18 June 2013. Ransdell has been an independent director of TXI since 2005 and has many years of experience in the construction materials industry. Ransdell now fills the position of chairman created by the untimely death of Bob Rogers on 11 June 2013.

Rogers was the son of the founder of TXI, Ralph Rogers, and was CEO of the company from 1970 until 2004 when he retired. From 2004 until 11 June 2013 he served as chairman of the board of TXI.

TXI is the largest producer of cement in Texas and a major cement producer in California. TXI is also a major supplier of construction aggregate, ready-mix concrete and concrete products.

Lafarge's decision to expand in Zimbabwe adds to the mix in sub-Saharan Africa.

As we discussed in Global Cement Weekly #104, Dangote and PPC (formerly Pretoria Portland Cement) may be facing off as the biggest local cement producers in the region but the influence of the European-based producers should not be dismissed too readily. Investing US$200m over the next 10 years matches PPC's similarly sized investment announced in November 2012. According to Lafarge, the spend will help maintain the cement producer's market share in the country.

The other point of note from Lafarge's Zimbabwe announcement is the emphasis on the multinational's 'Building Better Cities' campaign in the story. This is unsurprising given that that Lafarge Zimbabwe Managing Director Jonathan Shoniwa made the comments about Lafarge Zimbabwe at a branding event for the campaign. Similar events are happening around the world. However, looked at overall, the decision to place cities at the heart of its marketing makes an increasingly compelling case for a variety of markets.

Some commenters on the Global Cement LinkedIn Group discussed this very issue recently in response to a news story on Lafarge's next set of expansion plans for China. Specifically, someone asked why would Lafarge want to expand in a market suffering from overcapacity!

The Building Better Cities campaign offers one answer. As China prepares to shut down excess capacity, Lafarge's strategy to be in place once the dust settles (perhaps literally in some places) starts to make sense. As a marketing tagline 'building better cities' works well because who doesn't – from Zimbabwe to China to even France – want better cities with better transport links through price, planning, technical and aesthetic innovations.

To give a sense of the environmental zeitgeist happening in China right now, this week we carry a news story on the Chinese Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs reporting 17 Chinese cement companies for environmental misdemeanours. Elsewhere, we can see evidence of continued foreign enthusiasm for investment in the Chinese cement market from Japan's Sumitomo Osaka Cement, despite fears of overcapacity. Lafarge is saying the right things at the right time but it may not be alone in its strategy.

In the global cement news this week, we see that PPC (the former Pretoria Portland Cement), a large-scale domestic player in the South African cement industry, has taken it upon itself to provide association-like services to cement and concrete consumers in the country. PPC says that it felt obliged to supply information on things like quantity analysis, setting advice and product testing in the place of the now-defunct Cement and Concrete Institute (CCI).

The CCI, lambasted by PPC and other cement producers for years, was accused in April 2013 by PPC of not providing the kind of advice and services that cement producers should expect from an association. PPC, Lafarge and AfriSam all pulled funding and the CCI collapsed.

If the CCI had simply ceased to exist, PPC's new stance, putting its own cash into industry-wide assistance, might be seen as laudable. However, the CCI has been re-born as the Concrete Institute (CI), an organisation that is, by its own admission, no longer on the lookout for the interests of the whole industry. The CI is largely backed by Sephaku Cement, itself majority owned by the Nigerian cement juggernaut Dangote Cement, making PPC's stance suddenly look like one of self-preservation. Dangote is making rapid progress in the sub-Saharan cement industry and firms like PPC cannot afford to let it sweep aside the status-quo in South Africa.

The speed and scale of Dangote's rise, covered previously in this column, is huge. Nigeria's largest company now has interests in Senegal, Zambia, Tanzania, Congo, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia as well as Nigeria and South Africa. Not a month goes by without the announcement of another upgrade, plant or project. Dangote has a fantastic position in its domestic market that has enabled these new projects to be funded.

By contrast PPC is battling a stale construction market in South Africa. South African cement sales fell by 3.8% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2012. To counteract this, PPC has committed to expand outside of South Africa to the tune of 40% of total production by the start of 2016. It announced in early 2013 that production is on track to come online in Rwanda, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo by the fourth quarter of 2015. Zimbabwe is expected to follow suit by the middle of 2016. It already has interests in Botswana and Mozambique.

With two of its largest home-grown cement producers both expanding rapidly outside of their domestic markets, and a relative lack of interest from the big four multinationals, the sub-Saharan cement market is set for big changes in the medium to long term. PPC and Dangote are expanding towards each other and already share many markets. Dangote has expanded more rapidly and is moving towards exports from Nigeria. PPC is catching up by taking shares in strategically-placed plants. Is sub-Sahara headed for a showdown...? Whatever happens, the future of this rapidly-growing market will certainly be interesting.