Global Cement News

Saudi Arabia: Arabian Cement has appointed Mutaz Kusai Hassan Al Azzawi as its chair. It has also designated Saud Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Sulaiman as its vice chair. Both roles start in January 2024 and run until the end of 2027.

South Africa: China-based Huaxin Cement completed its acquisition of Brazil-based InterCement’s South African business on 27 December 2023. MarketScreener News has reported that financial services firm JPMorgan Chase acted as advisor to InterCement. The deal concludes the Brazilian company’s exit from Africa, after it sold its Egyptian and Mozambique businesses earlier in 2023.

Spain: Cementos La Cruz plans to build a new unit to produce reduced-CO₂ cement at its 1.5Mt/yr Abanilla grinding plant in Murcia. In a video posted on YouTube, the producer said that the new unit will produce cement using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) derived from industrial waste streams. Additionally, it will source 100% of its electricity consumption from biofuel-fired generators. Cementos La Cruz has secured Euro4.5m in European Union funding for the project.

General director Juan Luis Porrúa said that cement from the upcoming unit will have a specific carbon footprint below 200kg/t, and will eliminate over 400,000t of CO₂ emissions from Spanish construction in its first 10 years of operation.

Portugal: The competition authority has opened a 10-day window for public comment after receiving notification of Taiwan Cement Corporation’s proposed outright acquisition of Cimpor. The procedure is open to companies and members of the public interested in registering criticism or favourable opinions on the effects of the deal on competition.

Taiwan Cement Corporation agreed to buy current majority shareholder OYAK Çimento’s 60% stake in Cimpor for Euro480m in November 2023.

Czech Republic: Cemex Czech Republic resubmitted a revised environmental impact assessment (EIA) for its Prachovice quarry on 29 December 2023. Under the revised EIA, the quarry’s area will remain unchanged, but operations will expand to 1.7Mt/yr from 1.2Mt/yr. Authorities twice rejected previous EIAs for the mine.

Newton Media News has reported that the company says that its tests ‘clearly verified that the increased level of total organic carbon in air emissions was caused by one of the additives used in processing, and not by the content of organic substances in the mined raw material.’