Global Cement News

Russia: Eurocement has received nine new Volvo FM 8x4 heavy-duty dump trucks for its Kavkazcement and Maltsovsky Portland Cement plants. The vehicles have a capacity of 32t and include Volvo’s CareTrack telematics system. The cement producer hopes to increase the volumes of limestone it transports from each plant’s quarries by 15%. It has spent Euro1.3m on the new trucks.

Vietnam: SCG Cement – Building Materials Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology have signed a memorandum of understanding for a three-year collaboration on innovation including research, development and human development. The agreement follows work between the two organisations over the last year, according to The Vietnam Investment Review newspaper. They will now form a collaborative expert group to carry out research projects in line with the needs of SCG, to improve product quality, increase labour productivity and accelerate the application of new technologies in production and construction.

Philippines: Big Boss Cement and the related company Petra Cement are spending US$193m on cement grinding plant projects in Pampanga and Zamboanga. Big Boss Cement is building four cement lines at its Pampanga plant, according to the Business Mirror newspaper. Petra Cement is building two lines at Zamboanga del Norte. Both companies have the same shareholders, led by prominent businessman Henry Sy Jr.

Company President Gilbert S Cruz said that the companies will spend US$135m at Pampanga plant and US$58m at the Zamboanga plant. Each line will have a cement production capacity of around 0.5Mt/yr. Two production lines have been completed at the Pampanga plant and the remaining two are scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2020. The first new line at Zamboanga will be completed in November 2019 with preliminary work on the second to follow afterwards. Big Boss Cement and its related companies also plan to build new plants at General Santos, Negros and Iloilo. It aims to reach a production capacity of over 5Mt/yr by the mid-2020s.

The company says it is using a grinded activated sand by heating (G-ASH) process to produce a binding material for concrete that does not use imported clinker. It has claimed that it is the first cement company in the world to do so.

Pakistan: Thatta Cement has blamed a fall in profit on rising input costs and negative currency effects. Its profit dropped by 40% year-on-year to US$1.36m in the financial year to 30 June 2019 from US$2.27m in the same period in 2018. Sales and distribution costs more than tripled to US$1.4m. Its net sales grew by 22% to US$22m from US$18m. Total cement and clinker despatches increased by 34% to 0.56Mt from 0.42Mt.

Mexico: Ricardo Naya Barba, the president of Cemex Mexico, has admitted that 2019 has been a ‘difficult’ year for the subsidiary of the building materials company. He said that sales volumes of cement , concrete and aggregates had fallen by 12 – 15% in the first seven months of the year, according to the Mural newspaper. He blamed the decline partly on falling national infrastructure invesment. In 2018 the country accounted for 46% of Cemex’s overall earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) around the world.