Ukraine: Germany’s HeidelbergCement is selling its assets according to sources quoted by Interfax-Ukraine. It is reportedly selling to local investment group Concorde Capital and the deal will be completed during March and April 2019. The building materials local subsidiary, HeidelbergCement Ukraine, has not commented on story. The company operates integrated plants at Kryvyi Rih and Amvrosiyivka and a slag grinding plant at Kamyanske. Its loss rose by 14.4% year-on-year to around Euro14m in 2017.

Algeria: El-Hamel Sidi Moussa group’s Timegten cement plant has made its first 2000t export to Niger. The Chinese-Algerian joint venture used the Freight Transport and Logistics Group (Logitrans) to make the delivery overland via the In-Guezzam border crossing, according to Radio Algeria. The 1.2Mt/yr plant plans to target other countries, including Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

The Euro156m plant was commissioned in 2017. It is being run under a seven-year cooperation agreement where the Chinese partners manage the unit until the local workforce is trained. The plant also manufactures oil well cement.

India: JK Lakshmi improved its fuel consumption to 702kCal/kg of clinker in the October – December 2018 quarter from 705kCal/kg of clinker in the same period in 2017. Its revenue rose by 3.5% year-on-year to US$380m in the nine months to 31 December 2018 from US$368m in the same period in 2017. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 8% to US$45.4m from US$49.4m. The company said that it had been ‘facing pressure’ from increased petcoke and diesel prices. It also said that a 20MW thermal power plant and its Orissa grinding plant project were on schedule and are expected to be commissioned by March 2019.

Bolivia: President Evo Morales plans to prioritise the use of local produced cement for the construction new roads. He made the comment on a tour of a new cement plant being built at Caracollo, Oruro, according to the Pagina Siete newspaper. A decree or law will be used to enforce local government to use Bolivian-produced cement.