Global Cement News

Two fairly serious investments in Peru made the industry headlines this week. The first was Yura’s plans to upgrade its Arequipa cement plant at a cost of US$200m. The project will involve increasing the plant’s clinker production capacity as well as installing a new mill and a 4.3km conveyor. The second was the latest instalment in Cementos Interoceanicos’ long held ambition to build a plant. It has struck a deal with France-based Satarem to build a 1Mt/yr plant near Puno. The deal also includes Satarem buying a 30% stake in Cementos Interoceanicos and plans to construct two lime units as well.

Graph 1: Local cement sales in Peru, January 2020 to February 2021 compared to January 2019 to February 2020. Source: ASOCEM.

These projects follow a squeeze for the local industry due to coronavirus-related containment measures. Data from the Association of Cement Producers (ASOCEM) shows that cement sales collapsed during the lockdown to just 11,000t in April 2020 before recovering in the autumn. Total annual local sales fell by 17% year-on-year to 9.7Mt from 11.6Mt. Sales have also remained high in January and February 2021.

The experience from the larger cement producers mirror the data from ASOCEM. Cementos Pacasmayo’s sales revenue fell by 7% year-on-year to US$354m in 2020 and its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 21% to US$86.3m. Unión Andina de Cementos’ (UNACEM) income fell by 14% year-on-year to US$467m in 2020. Despite this, UNACEM managed to sign a deal to buy Cementos La Unión Chile for US$23m in December 2020. The purchase consists of a 0.3Mt/yr cement grinding plant and a 0.34Mm³/yr ready-mix concrete business with multiple concrete plants and trucks. UNACEM described Chile as its main clinker export destination and it holds concrete and precast subsidiaries in the country.

Yura’s general manager Ramón Pizá reportedly called his company’s plans a “vote of faith in Peru.” This is not an understatement considering the market shocks caused by coronavirus in 2020. The country implemented public health measures relatively early during the pandemic but still ended up with one of the worst death rates per capita in Latin America so far. As the British Medical Journal (BMJ) pointed out earlier this month, the timing was right but tragically the application of public health measures has been found wanting. Yet, the fundamentals for the Peruvian cement market are strong. Annual sales mounted from 2017 to 2019, and were showing signs of continuing this in early 2020 before the lockdown shut the market down. This growth pattern has continued so far in 2021.

Ireland: CRH has appointed Jim Mintern as group finance director with effect from 1 June 2021. He will also join the company’s board of directors at the same time. He succeeds Senan Murphy who is retiring.

Mintern, aged 54 years, is a chartered accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Dublin. He has over 30 years of experience in the building materials industry, nearly 20 years of which have been with CRH.

He joined CRH in Ireland as finance director for Roadstone in 2002 and since then has held several senior positions across the group, including country manager for Ireland and managing director of each of the Western and Eastern regions of our Europe Materials business. Mintern is an executive vice president of CRH and a member of the group’s Global Leadership Team. In his most recent role as chief of staff to the chief executive officer he worked with divisional and operational leadership, having oversight of group performance programmes and leading the planning and execution of some of the group’s recent large acquisitions including Ash Grove in North America in 2018.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has appointed Guillaume Moyen as its group chief financial officer (CFO).

Moyen joined Dangote Cement in February 2019 as group CFO (operations) and was appointed acting group chief financial officer in March 2019. He is in charge of finance and information technology (IT) and has more than 20 years’ experience in multi-national industrial and services companies notably operating in emerging and frontier markets.

During his career he has worked in finance, risk management, internal control, audit, information technology and procurement working in senior positions in manufacturing, engineering, oil and gas, nuclear energy, mining and consulting sectors notably with the Areva Group, the Ola Energy Group and KPMG. Guillaume is a chartered accountant and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Columbia Business School.

UK: CRH subsidiary Tarmac has appointed Chris Bradbury as the plant manager at its integrated Dunbar cement plant in East Lothian, Scotland. He previously worked at Tarmac’s Tunstead plant in Derbyshire. Bradbury began working in the cement industry as an apprentice in 1994 and has held many roles at plants both in the UK and in Nigeria and the Philippines.

China: Germany-based Schmersal Group has appointed Michele Seassaro as the managing director of Schmersal Industrial Switchgear based in Shanghai. He has been managing the group’s China-based subsidiary since the start of March 2021.

Seassaro, aged 52 years, was born in Milan, Italy and has more than 20 years of international management experience, including in Europe, North Africa and Asia Pacific. Over the past ten years, he has held senior positions in various companies in the consumer goods and food industry in China. He holds a law background as well as an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) degree from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and studied the Chinese language at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Schmersal operates a production plant in the Qingpu district of Shanghai. It produces position and safety switches as well as lift switchgear for the Asian market. The company also operates a number of sales offices across China.