India: Denmark-based Hasle has supplied a Hasle D59A coating-resistant castable to Asian Cement for use on the inlet chamber and riser duct at its cement plant. The supplier supervised installation. It said that the castable will reduce the required lining materials of the equipment, resulting in savings.

Australia: Boral’s group net sales fell by 9% year-on-year to US$2.10bn in the first half of its 2021 financial year from Euro2.78bn in the corresponding period of its 2020 financial year. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 1% to US$376m from US$381m. Net profit after tax remained consistent with previous first-half levels at US$121m. The group noted good value creation from its sale of its 50% stake in USG Boral to Germany-based Knauf for US$1.02bn, which it expects to conclude in the second half of the 2021 financial year.

Chief executive officer and managing director Zlatko Todorcevski said, “While market conditions across the sector remain uncertain, we have made strong early progress to reset our portfolio of businesses, in line with our commitment to shareholders to transform Boral into a more agile, resilient and profitable company. Much work remains to be done but we are well on our way. Our half-year results were impacted, as we expected, by a decline in multi-residential and non-residential construction activity in Australia, particularly in New South Wales, and the completion of a number of major projects ahead of materials demand from new projects coming through. We are in a good position to supply demand when activity in Australia picks up.” He added that housing demand in the North American region strengthened throughout the first half of 2021.

Cement sales revenue and earnings from the group’s Boral Australia subsidiary were reported as stable. The group has also conducted a study of the US fly ash market as part of its ongoing portfolio review. It plans to strengthen its fly ash business in the long term due to expected demand growth.

Italy: Buzzi Unicem’s net sales remained stable at Euro3.22bn in 2020. Cement sales volumes grew slightly to 29.3Mt and ready-mixed concrete sales fell by 3.1% year-on-year to 11.7Mm³ from 12.1Mm³. The group attributed this to growth in the US and stable markets in Russia and Germany, compensating for weaker trends in Eastern Europe and Italy.

Europe/North America: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim and US-based Schlumberger plan to study the feasibility of carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems at two cement plants in Europe and North America. The companies say that the partnership is intended to as a precursor towards the deployment of large-scale CCS solutions.

LafargeHolcim’s chief sustainability officer Magali Anderson said, “Today’s announcement is further proof of LafargeHolcim’s environmental leadership and commitment to pioneer new solutions to reduce carbon emissions on our journey to become a net zero company. Our partnership with Schlumberger, the world’s leading provider of technology to the global energy industry, will bring new advances in storage that could be replicated at scale across our sites.”