Global Cement News

Ivory Coast: Jean-Claude Brou, the Minister of Industry and Mines, has inaugurated a new mill at LafargeHolcim Ivory Coast’s plant at Abidjan. The new mill has increased the unit’s production capacity to 2Mt/yr, according to the Agence Ivoirienne de Presse. LafargeHolcim Ivory Coast re-used a ball mill from a Spanish cement plant that was dismantled and shipped to Abidjan. The mill uses a 4.5MW motor and the cement producer says it is the largest horizontal ball mill in French-speaking West Africa. The project cost US$28.5m.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement has completed the loading of its first clinker shipment to Sub-Saharan Africa. The 38,000t consignment was loaded at the port of La Goulette. It is part of a 350,000t deal that the cement producer announced in December 2017.

India: JK Cement has received approval for an upgrade at its Mangrol cement plant near Chittorgarh in Rajasthan. The plant will have an investment of US$312m, according to Accord Fintech. Following the expansion the plant will have a cement production capacity of 4.2Mt/yr. Cement grinding will be supported by units in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

Bahrain: The local construction sector is expected to grow following the lifting of export duties on cement by Saudi Arabia. Saudi National Committee of Cement Producers chairman Jehad Al Rasheed told said that cement export duties were cancelled at the end of January 2018, according to the Gulf Daily News newspaper. Export tariffs were originally set at US$23 – 35/t but were then halved in July 2017 to encourage the market.

Bahrain had been the only country allowed to import cement from Saudi Arabia since 2009. However, the price rose significantly in March 2017 after the Saudi government introduced new tariffs and permitted cement exports globally.

France: Lafarge Syria’s former director Christian Herrault has claimed that Eric Chevallier, the former ambassador to Syria, knew about payments to armed groups by the cement producer. French investigators questioned Herrault in the presence of Chevallier, according to a source quoted by the Agence France Presse. Herrault allegedly said that he had met Chevallier several times, that he knew about the situation and that he said that the company should stay as, “…these problems won't last long."

Jean-Claude Veillard, the group's former security boss, has said he regularly informed French intelligence services about its operations in the region. Investigators have also found evidence of meetings between Lafarge and diplomats, including a note suggesting that one took place in Paris in January 2013.

The investigation is attempting to determine whether LafargeHolcim’s predecessor company Lafarge Syria paid terrorist groups in Syria and how much managers knew about the situation.