Global Cement News

Sri Lanka: A leaked letter from investment body the Agency for Development has revealed Chinese state pressure towards a tender for building a new cement grinding plant in the Hambantota investment zone. In the letter, reported upon by the News First television network, the head of the agency states that the Chinese Embassy asked that a Chinese investor, Sinoma Nanjing, be given priority for the project otherwise it would ‘lose confidence’ in the scheme. He added that the Chinese investors would pull out if other investors were also allowed to produce cement in the zone. The letter also reveals that the agency has proposed that Sinoma Nanjing form a joint venture with Ceylon Steel Corporation.

India: Orient Cement has signed a deal with Jaiprakash Associates to buy three cement plants from it for US$302m. The arrangement, which was originally announced in October 2016, includes a deal to buy a 74% stake in Bhilai Jaypee Cement for US$225m and the acquisition of the Nigrie cement grinding plant in Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh from Jaiprakash Power Ventures for US$77m, according to the Hindu newspaper. Bhilai Jaypee Cement, a joint venture between Jaiprakash Associates and the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), has a 2.2Mt/yr integrated Portland slag cement plant in Satna Madhya, Madhya Pradesh and a grinding plant in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh.

The transaction will be funded by Orient Cement through a mix of internal accruals, debt and equity funding. The acquisitions will increase Orient Cement’s production capacity to 10.2Mt/yr from 8Mt/yr and it will grant it access to the central and eastern regions of the country.

Ed Sullivan, the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) chief economist was in tub-thumbing mood last week at the IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Conference in Calgary, Canada. The headline figures that the PCA put out in a press release was a forecast of a 3.5% rise in cement consumption in 2018 and 2019. Yet behind this in a stirring speech given to a cement industry crowd craving growth was a tale of riches ahead. The audience lapped it up. There was only one problem: nothing has really happened yet to make any if this happen. It always seems to be riches ahead. As Sullivan freely put it, “Trump policies will impact cement… But we don’t know what they are!”

Sullivan broke down his forecast into three sections that hinged around President Trump’s desired policy changes kicking in from about the third quarter of 2019. At this point, owing to lack of information about what the Trump administration actually wants to do, Sullivan freely broke open the assumptions. These covered issues such as a tax reform, infrastructure budgeting, immigration reforms and more. As he explained it all of these issues interact, so that reducing taxes potentially pushes national debt up making infrastructure spending harder. Owing to the lack of specifics from the current administration though Sullivan was forced to resort to the more solid plans of Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and even Bernie Saunders for nuggets of information of how ‘a government’ might act. For example, he used a breakdown of Saunders’s intended infrastructure spend to try and predict how Trump’s policies could play out. Increases in highway building from the overall infrastructure spend in this context being good news for the cement industry. And as for Sullivan’s view on the impact of the Trump border wall: ‘overrated’.

The new forecasts for 2018 and 2019 appear to be retrenchment given that the PCA was predicting growth of 4% for 2016 in the middle of that year. It subsequently reduced its estimate to 2.7% for 2016 by December 2016 after the presidential election. However its figures for 2017 and 2018 have increased since the December forecast. Sullivan predicted that growth will start to surpass 5% in 2020 once Trump’s policies have time to make waves. The crescendo of his presentation at the IEEE-IAS/PCA was a prognostication of an extra requirement of 14Mt of cement in 2021 and 2022. Sullivan topped this off by saying that, “We have the supply infrastructure in place right now.” However, some delegates informally questioned afterwards where that cement might actually come from with mass international clinker capacity waiting in the wings from places like Vietnam and new cement plants such as the McInnis Cement plant in Quebec expressively targeted at the US import market about to come on line.

Sullivan has a tricky job trying to predict what will happen next in the US cement industry and sometimes his forecasts seems to change as much as the weather that cement company financial reports often blame their poor returns on. This column knows a little bit how he feels. As Sullivan’s biography points out he’s been cited by the Chicago Federal Reserve as the most accurate forecaster regarding economic growth among 30 top economists. In short he’s the best we’ve got. But Donald Trump’s approach to government so far has made his job exponentially harder. As we’ve said more than a few times when describing the US cement market, the basis are there for growth but something is holding back faster growth. Will Trump be the catalyst to break the 5% growth barrier? Looks like we’ll have to wait until late 2019 to find out.

Elsewhere, the conference brought together a large cross-section of the North American industry. Surprisingly perhaps given the change in leadership at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) several parts of the speaker and discussion programme focused on coping with National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), carbon tax schemes in Canada and California and practical carbon capture methods at the plant level. The key here seemed to be a piecemeal approach that may not necessarily be at odds with less government environmental legislation. Next year’s outing in Nashville, Tennessee looks set to be an even more important event, especially if more on Trump's infrastructure plans become known.

Jamaica: A strike has closed down the Caribbean Cement Company’s Rockfort plant. The industrial action also prevented locals accessing a ship-based book fair via the plant’s jetty, according to the Jamaica Observer newspaper. The cement company says it is in negotiations with the National Workers' Union (NWU) to reach a new collective labour agreement. It has also informed the Ministry of Labour and Social Security about the industrial action. Work at the site was expected to resume in late May 2017. Cemex took over Trinidad Cement, the majority shareholder of the Caribbean Cement Company in early 2017.

Myanmar: Residents have signed a petition asking the Karen National Union (KNU) to cancel the Min Lwin Mountain quarry and cement plant project. Local activists say that the plant could lead to environmental concerns and land disputes, according to local press. The Phyu Min Tun Company Limited started mineral tests at the site in 2014. However, the KNU suspended the project in May 2016 in response to protests and complaints lodged by the Min Lwin Area Natural Environment Protection Committee. Despite the cancellation representatives of the KNU have continued to discuss the project with local residents leading to renewed opposition.