Global Cement News

Mexico: The net sales of Grupo Cementos Chihuahua (GCC) increased by 10.8% year-on-year in 2021 compared to 2020, according to its fourth quarter financial report. Its net sales for the year came to US$1.04bn, while operating profit rose by 14.2% to US$214.3m from US$211.3m a year earlier.

GCC said that its stronger result was due to both volumes increases and higher selling prices in the US and Mexico. In the US market, the company’s cement volumes increased by 5.6% in 2021, with a 5.1% rise in concrete sales. Prices in the US rose by 8.9% and 5.1% respectively. In Mexico, cement and ready-mix concrete volumes rose by 6.9% and 19.1% respectively. Overall sales increased by 17.9%.

Mexico: The average price of bagged grey cement has soared by an average of 14.5% so far in January 2022. Bulk cement prices have increased by 20% month-on-month since mid December 2021.

Locally-owned multinational producer Cemex said that, to maintain margins, it increased the price of its bagged cement by 14.4% nationwide and its bulk cement by 17 - 20%. "The increases applied to our products seek to recover part of the inflation that the company has had in its costs," the company explained in a press release.

Javier Fernández, director of the materials distributor Grupo Mecasa, which has a presence in Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, said that the rest of the country's cement companies also raised prices in a similar proportion to Cemex.

Russia: Iskitimcement, part of Siberian Cement, manufactured 1.18Mt of cement in 2021, a 20% rise year-on-year compared to 2020. It said that increase was primarily caused by demand growth. Iskitimcement shipped 0.45Mt of cement to customers by rail and 0.74Mt by road in 2021. Sales of bulk cement grew to 0.95Mt, around 80% of all sales. The manufacturer supplied 86,000t in 1t big bags and 145,000t in paper bags.

UAE/Egypt: Orascom Construction, a UAE-based engineering and construction contractor, has acquired Orascom Trading, an Egypt based provider of heavy machinery equipment, including equipment for the global cement sector.

Sri Lanka: The National Construction Association of Sri Lanka (NCASL) claims that no quality control checks are being conducted on imports of cement. The association says that there are labels printed on cement bags confirming that they were quality checked by the Sri Lanka Standard Institute (SLSI) but that it has no evidence of such checks actually being carried out, according to the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror newspaper. It has asked for the authorities to show evidence that the quality control checks are actually taking place.

Sri Lanka faced a shortage of cement in the autumn of 2021 due to input cost rises, supply chain disruption and negative exchange rates effects. The NCASL reports that most cement imports come from India or Pakistan.