Global Cement News

India: Ratings agency Emkay Global has forecast an 11% year-on-year rise in UltraTech Cement’s second-quarter sales in the 2022 financial year to US$1.5bn from US$1.36bn. It expects the producer’s cement sales to rise by 6% in the period to 20.4Mt, and its net profit to grow by 6.4% to US$174m from US$163m.

The Economic Times newspaper has reported that Emkay Global predicted that UltraTech Cement’s costs will rise by 7% and that its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation per tonne of cement will fall by 5% year-on-year.

Australia: Cockburn Cement has begun a US$152m upgrade of its Kwinana grinding plant. Business News has reported that the project will consolidate the company’s Kwinana and Munster grinding operations at a single 1.5Mt/yr plant. The company says that this will increase its production capacity by 36% and reduce its cement’s CO₂ emissions by 20%.

The company will manage operations at the plant directly. Managing director Nick Miller said "We've all seen through the Covid-19 outbreak that domestic manufacture of essential products such as cement and industrial lime becomes critically important. Reliability of supply has become a very important driver for decision makers." He added "We have turned away from a turnkey contract to a self-delivery model. Part of the self-delivery model is to access small to medium sub-contractors in the market, where we have seen better value in what is a very heated market."

Sweden: Cementa has announced that its Stockholm cement terminal will no longer receive deliveries of its Slite brand cement and will instead begin solely stocking the company’s fly ash cement from 1 December 2021. The producer says that the transition will reduce the carbon footprint of the terminal’s products by 30,000t/yr. Slite cement will continue to be available from the nearby Köping and Oxelösund cement terminals.

Russia: Krasnoyarsk Cement has installed a continuous monitoring system for emission control at its Krasnoyarsk cement plant. It carried out the upgrade under the government’s national Ecology project. The system will transmit daily average emissions data to the Krasnoyarsk Territory Ministry of Ecology and Nature Management. Members of the public will be able to access the submissions on the ministry’s website.

Managing Director Dmitry Kireev said “According to the current legislation, the installation was supposed to start working before 31 December 2028. However, due to the fact that the enterprise is located within the city, we voluntarily assumed increased obligations and launched online monitoring of emissions ahead of schedule."

India: Rain Industries has expanded the capacity of its Kurnool grinding plant in Andhra Pradesh. Reuters News has reported that the expansion enlarges the plant’s capacity by 38% to 2.8Mt/yr from 2Mt/yr.