Global Cement News

India: Harish Badami has taken over as CEO and managing director of ACC effective from 13 August 2014. The former CEO and managing director, Kuldip Kaura, left his position on the same date. The board of ACC, in which Holcim has a majority stake, had approved Badami's appointment in June 2014.

Immediately before joining ACC on 1 August 2014, Badami had served as managing director of Celanese India. He has held similar positions of president and managing director of Dow Chemical India, as well as managing director of Rohm and Haas India, before its acquisition in 2009 by Dow Chemical.

Of the five African cement news stories in this edition of Global Cement Weekly, three concern the actions of Nigerian cement giant Dangote Cement. This week it has announced a new captive power plant in Nigeria and the fact that Sephaku Cement, which is owned by Dangote to the tune of 64%, is now in a position to produce cement from its Aganang plant in South Africa. These two items are fairly typical of the type of announcement that Dangote makes in the African market, and the high frequency with which it makes them. It is the third story, of course, which is unusual.

We have heard, for a couple of years now, that Dangote has designs on becoming a pan-African cement giant. Certainly it is the pre-eminent producer in west Africa, with its influence rapidly spreading to the east, north west and south of this vast continent. Few others, (but perhaps South Africa's PPC), can claim to have such influence and, unopposed, there seems no limit to Dangote's ambitions.

This week we heard just how bold those ambitions are. For the first time Africa's No. 1 cement producer has said that it wants to break out of Africa and enter new markets. No longer satisfied with operating at home, a company release has identified the Middle East and Latin America as potential hunting grounds, either for new capacity or acquisitions. The proposed list of LafargeHolcim cast-offs, which includes few assets in either region (LINK), will also have received significant attention in the Dangote boardroom.

The selection of the Middle East and Latin America, however, is not accidental. The Middle East is a high growth area and provides a platform for possible 'pincer-movement' expansion into more impenetrable markets in central Africa like Chad and (South) Sudan. The Middle East also means proximity to India. Dangote may also want to dampen the influence that Indian, Pakistani and Iranian exports have in the region. Potential tie-ups with Dangote's growing operations in east Africa are clear.

The selection of Latin America, on the face of it at least, is less obvious. There are numerous strong and growing local and regional producers. Not least of these is Colombia's Cementos Argos, which has increased its influence in the USA through strategic acquisitions. There are also numerous domestic large Brazilian producers but Dangote may feel like there is room for more to joint the party. Cade, the Brazilian competition authority, has certainly agreed that competition could be improved in Brazil following its recent investigations. Could Brazil be a prime target?

Wherever Dangote decides to play its first non-African card, it will be a major step for the company and African cement producers. How long until we see the first African-owned cement plant on another continent?

US: Ash Grove Cement Company has appointed J Randall Vance as its new President and COO. Vance, who served three years as senior vice president of administration and CFO, assumes responsibility for manufacturing and sales of the company's cement operations, as well as continuing to lead its finance, accounting, risk management, information technology and human resources departments.

"Since joining Ash Grove, Vance has demonstrated outstanding leadership skills that fit well in the Ash Grove culture," said Charles T Sunderland, chairman and CEO. "Vance brings a breadth of business experience to Ash Grove, which gives us confidence that he will be a catalyst in guiding the company's performance." Sunderland will remain in his position.

"It is a privilege to be selected to lead such a talented and dedicated team," said Vance. "Our focus on safety, quality and customer service is exceptional in the cement industry. I am eager to continue to grow our business as a supplier of choice."

Before joining Ash Grove, Vance served as senior vice president, CFO and treasurer of Interstate Bakeries Corporation. Prior to Interstate Bakeries, Vance served in a number of corporate finance roles at Farmland Industries. Ash Grove Cement has launched a search for a new CFO.

The comic book series 'Watchmen' takes its title from the Latin phrase 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' which is translated as 'Who watches the watchmen?' Commonly used today to warn against government, police and judicial corruption, the saying might also apply to those groups who watch big industry such as the Atlas of Environmental Justice.

This initiative is an online database compiled by the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) to map environmental conflicts around the world. It's a great tool, it is professionally presented and the project is backed by the European Commission. EJOLT's goals are to give those fighting for environmental justice a voice and to gather data to allow policy change.

As ever the problem with any form of user-content database is who vets the submissions and how much of 'reality' does the data actually represent compared to a more curated project. The mass use of Wikipedia shows that these issues can be overcome to some extent, while user-submitted online hotel and restaurant reviews often suggest otherwise.

All three conflicts registered in the EJ Atlas in southern England, where the Global Cement office is based, offer incomplete or misleading data. The entry for the third runway expansion at Heathrow airport doesn't present the economic benefits of expanding the airport or what the alternatives are. Rightly, the activists will argue that they have significantly smaller resources compared to the big industrial multinationals to fight their corner. Unfortunately this shows in the EJ Atlas and the user-submitted data approach it uses.

At the time of writing only 15 cases are tagged as cement-related out of a total of 1154. This is far fewer cases than you might expect with no mention, for example, of any of the regular environmental scuffles the cement industry faces in North America. The cases it does list are mainly based in Latin America with other clusters in southern Europe and India. Of these, three have been mislabelled and are not even related to the cement industry. The rest are mainly concerned with pollution due to waste incineration and mineral extraction worries. The waste incineration listings have a certain irony about them considering that these cement plants are almost certainly praising themselves for their reduced carbon emissions!

In the online world big companies can sometimes be at a disadvantage to nimble activist campaigns. Journalists from national media outlets can easily find campaigns with a web or social media presence to provide counterpoint for editorial. A good example is the Stop Titan Action Network that formed to fight Titan America's cement plant in Castle Hayne in North Carolina, US.

If the EJ Atlas accrues more attention and/or carries on past its project deadline of 2015 then the problems with the atlas may be fixed as activists log more cases, industry refutes them and the moderators weigh up the arguments in line with the project's aims of environmental justice. As previous online examples have shown, engagement may be better than ignoring these kind of initiatives.

India: Orient Cement has appointed Sushil Gupta as chief financial officer following a meeting of its board of directors. Other appointments included Rahul Deshmukh as chief operating officer and S K Pandey as plant head of Devapur.