Global Cement News

Germany: HeidelbergCement’s revenue from its cement business fell by 2.5% year-on-year to Euro4.16bn in the first half of 2018 from Euro4.27bn in the same period in 2017. Despite this, its cement sales volumes grew by 3% to 61.9Mt from 60.1Mt due to growth in its Asia-Pacific and Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin, Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia areas. Across all business lines its sales revenue rose slightly to Euro8.43bn from Euro8.39bn although the group said it rose by 6% on a like-for-like basis. Its profit increased by 20.2% to Euro435m from Euro362m.

“The growth of revenue and sales volumes in all business lines reflects the strong market dynamics. All in all, we could significantly improve the profit also in the second quarter. The strong operational development, lower restructuring charges and a further reduction in financing costs more than compensated for the increasing cost inflation and negative exchange rate effects,” said Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the managing board. He added that a ‘solid’ development of results in the second quarter indicated a positive trend reversal after a weather-related difficult start of the year.

By region, in Western and Southern Europe the group’s cement and clinker sales volumes rose by 5.3% to 15.1Mt due to the acquisition of Cementir in Italy and the good development of sales volumes in Spain. In its Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia area, sales volumes fell by 4% to 11.5Mt due to bad weather. In North America its sales volumes decreased by 2.3% to 7.4Mt due to bad weather and the sale of its white cement business. In Asia-Pacific sales volumes rose by 5.4% to 17.5Mt with growth noted in Indonesia. Finally, in the group’s Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin area sales volumes grew by 6.4% to 9.9Mt driven by markets in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Vietnam: SCG Vietnam’s sales revenue rose by 20% year-on-year to US$639m in the first half of 2018. The subsidiary of Thailand’s SCG reported faster sales growth in the second quarter of 2018, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. Sales increased by 28% year-on-year to US$371m in the second quarter.

Turkey: İsmail Bulut, the head of the Turkish Cement Manufacturers Association (TÇMB), says that the local industry exported US$124m of cement in 2017. He told the Daily Sabah newspaper that the sector has a production capacity of 81Mt/yr. TÇMB data shows that it exported 7.98Mt of cement in 2017 to nearly 100 countries. The top destinations for Turkish cement included Syria, the US, Israel and Ghana. It also exported 4.93Mt of clinker led by Ghana, Colombia, Ivory Coast and Guinea. Despite the high levels of exports, the country also imported relatively small amounts of clinker for Greece and Bulgaria in 2017.

Colombia: Data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) shows that cement production declined by 1.2% year-on-year to 5.96Mt in the first half of 2018. However, production has improved since 2017 with the annual production from July 2017 to June 2018 being 12.2Mt, a decrease of 0.5% year-on-year, compared to a fall of 5.9% for the previous 12 months.

Paraguay: Industria Nacional del Cemento’s (INC) Vallemi cement plant has been paralysed by a coke shortage. All operations at the unit’s clinker kiln have been suspended, according to the Ultima Hora newspaper. The producer is still making cement deliveries but its clinker stocks have fallen to below 30,000t. The company reportedly only has fuel oil left for one day and sufficient coke for one day of full operation. It is awaiting the arrival of a 6000t consignment of coke.