Global Cement News

India: The price of imported petcoke has hit a multi-year high in March 2018. Increased demand and a shortage due to maintenance work at refineries has caused the rise in price, according to the Mint newspaper. In November, the Indian Supreme Court temporarily banned the use of petcoke in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The import duty of the fuel was then raised to 10% from 2.5%.

Deepak Kannan, managing editor of Asia Thermal Coal at S&P Global Platts, said that local demand for petcoke is around 23 – 24Mt/yr but that local supply is only 14Mt/yr. Much of the country imported petcoke comes from the US or Saudi Arabia. Petcoke prices are expected to relax in April 2018 as refineries return to normal operation.

Egypt: France’s Vicat plans to invest Euro50m into its Sinai Cement subsidiary. Gianfranco Tantardini, the managing director of the local subsidiary, said that the cement producer wants to reduce the company’s losses by raising its stake in it, according to Mubasher. Vicat is waiting for the Egyptian government to approve a waiver to the 45% foreign ownership limits for the transaction to happen. In 2003 Vicat acquired a 40% stake in Sinai Cement.

China: The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has approved the merger between China National Building Material (CNBM) and China National Materials (Sinoma). The approval by the CSRC for the merger between the leading Chinese producer and the equipment manufacturer follows approval by the Anti-monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce and shareholder approval in December 2017 and approval by the Fair Trade Commission in South Korea in November 2017.

Mexico: Cemex’s chief executive officer (CEO) Fernando González says that the company is nearly ready to start considering acquisitions after a decade of asset sales and debt reduction. He told analysts at a conference in New York that the company will seek shareholder approval in April 2018 to issue new shares to raise capital, which it could eventually use along with debt and cash, according to Dow Jones.

The building materials producer plans to focus on cement operations in large emerging markets and on aggregates in developed markets. Major markets where Cemex doesn't have operations include India and Brazil and it would be interested in targeted these regions. The company has also striven to regain its investment-grade credit rating it held until 2008 when its earnings fell following its US$15.5bn purchase of Rinker.

Honduras: Cementos del Norte has spent US$29m on upgrades for its Rio Bijao cement plant in Choloma. The project includes increasing the unit’s capacity for production, storage capacity and alternative fuels, according to the La Prensa newspaper. The cement producer is installing a new cement grinding mill at the site. This will enable it to raise its cement prouction capacity to 2.5Mt/yr from 1.5Mt/yr.