Global Cement News

There was a great quote on BBC News from Nigerian cement mogul Aliko Dangote to start 2014 with: "Can you imagine, can you believe, that [Nigeria] has been growing at 7%/yr with no power, with zero power? It's a joke."

In the article Dangote is describing economic growth in Nigeria and the BBC points out that 170 million people in Nigeria use the same amount of power as 1.5 million people do in the UK. The author then goes on to predict that Nigeria could grow at a rate of 10 – 12%, by just solving power infrastructure in the country.

For the start of 2014 the British state broadcaster has been running a radio series on the so-called MINT economies. The term refers to the growing economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey and is being used as a new buzzword in the same fashion as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to describe broadly similar growing economies outside the traditional western bloc dominated by the G7.

Comparing the cement industries in the MINT countries raises some discrepancies between the desires of Western economists and the local cement industries. Mexico has a population of 118m, a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$1.85tr and a cement production capacity of 50Mt/yr. Indonesia has a population of 238m, a GDP of US$1.29tr and a cement production capacity of 47Mt/yr. Nigeria has a population of 175m, a GDP of US$479bn and a cement production capacity of 28Mt/yr. Turkey has a population of 74m, a GDP of US$1.17tr and a cement production capacity of 82Mt/yr.

Mexico and Turkey have the lower populations in the MINT group, the highest (and most similar) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita at US$15,000 and are the more developed cement industries in the group with the higher cement production capacities per capita. All of the MINT countries have infrastructural issues that will require large amounts of cement in the coming years.

Highlighting Dangote's concerns we cover a cement industry news story this week from Nepal, where Dangote is considering potential locations for a cement plant. Part of the publicly reported meeting between Dangote and the Nepalese government concerned power requirements for the project. Dangote intends to generate 30MW itself and has asked Nepal to provide 30MW. From the CEO downwards the cement producer clearly understands the problems of underdeveloped infrastructure. This is not surprising given his comments above!

That MINT economies are growing powers will not surprise the cement industry. In this week's Global Cement Weekly, in addition to the Dangote story, we feature two news stories focusing on direct industry capital investment in Indonesia. Looking more widely nearly half the stories are from BRIC or MINT countries.

With this in mind Global Cement has developed its own buzzword for the cement industry in 2014: the VISA group. This group includes Vietnam, Italy, Spain and Australia, countries that have all had problems with their cement industries in 2013 such as a production overcapacity or financial losses. If readers have any nicknames of their own for groups of cement producing nations let us know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Pakistan: Maple Leaf Cement has appointed Tariq Saeed Saigol as the chairman of the company from 1 January 2014 for a three year term.

Saigol studied Law at University Law College, Lahore. He started his career in 1968 at Kohinoor's Chemical Complex at Kala Shah Kaku and became the chief executive of Kohinoor Textile Mills, Rawalpindi in 1976. Since 1984, he has been chairman of Kohinoor Maple Leaf Group, which has interests in textiles, energy and cement production.

He has also been chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association in 1992 - 1994, president of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry for 1995 - 1997 and chairman of the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association from 2003 - 2006.

Ukraine: On 1 January 2014 Volyn Cement (part of Dyckerhoff Ukraine) relieved two members of the supervisory board, chairman of the supervisory board Otto Lose and supervisory board member Volker Sonnabend. The posts remain vacant.

Volyn Cement suffered a loss of Euro2.69m in 2012 according to the International Financial Reporting Standards. Its net revenues increased by 1.85% year-on-year to Euro59.2m in 2011.

As this is the last issue of Global Cement Weekly before the Christmas 2013 break, once again we will look at some of the major news stories of the year. This is a subjective summary of the year so if readers feel we have missed anything major let us know via LinkedIn, Twitter or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

China tackles pollution and overcapacity
2013 has been the year that China's central planners took action against cement production overcapacity and pollution. Consolidation plans for the industry followed falling profits for cement producers in 2012. However, record air pollution levels in Beijing in early 2013 shut the city down, raised public awareness and gave the government a strong lever to encourage further industry consolidation through environmental controls. By the middle of year profits of major producers were up but production was also up. Finally in December 2013, China started to launch its emissions trading schemes (ETS), led by Guangdong province, to create what will be the second largest carbon market in the world after the EU ETS.

India faces a sticky wicket
Meanwhile, the world's second largest cement producing country has faced poor profits and growth for cement producers blamed on paltry demand, piddling prices and proliferating production costs. Compounding that, the Indian Rupee fell to a historic low relative to the US Dollar in mid-2013, further putting pressure on input costs. Holcim reacted to all of this by releasing plans to simplify its presence in the country between Holcim India, Ambuja and ACC.

Sub-Saharan Africa draws up the battle lines
Competition in sub-Saharan Africa is set to intensify when Nigeria's Dangote Cement opens its first cement plant in South Africa in early 2014. It is the first time Africa's two largest cement producers, Dangote and South Africa's PPC, will produce cement in the same country. Future clashes will follow across the region as each producer increasingly advances toward the other.

The Kingdom needs cement... and workers
Saudi Arabian infrastructure demands have created all sorts of reverberations across the Middle Eastern cement industry and beyond as the nation pushes on to build its six 'economic' cities amongst other projects. Back in April 2013 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia issued an edict ordering the import of 10Mt of cement. Then some producers started to report production line shutdowns in the autumn of 2013 as they buckled under the pressure, although they consoled themselves with solid profit rises. Now, cement sales have fallen following a government crackdown on migrant workers that has hit the construction sector.

Competition concerns in Europe
Europe may be slowly emerging from the economic gloom but anti-trust regulators have remained vigilant. An asset swap between Cemex and Holcim over units in the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain has received attention from the European Commission. In the UK the Competition Commission has decreed that further action is required for the cement sector following the creation of new player Hope Construction Materials in 2012. Lafarge Tarmac may now have to sell another one of its UK cement plants to increase more competition into the market. Elsewhere in Europe, Belgium regulators took action in September 2013 and this week we report on Polish action against cartel-like activity.

Don't forget South-East Asia, Brazil or Russia!
Growth continues to dominate these regions and major sporting tournaments are on the way in Brazil and Russia, further adding to local cement demand. Votorantim may have cancelled its US$4.8bn initial public offering in August 2013 but it is still has the highest cement production capacity in Brazil. Finally, Indonesia may not have had any 'marquee' style story to sum up 2013 but it continues to regularly announce cement plant builds. In July 2013 the Indonesian Cement Association announced that cement sales growth had fallen to 'just' 7.5% for the first half of 2013.

Global Cement Weekly will return on 8 January 2013

Australia: Martin Brydon has been appointed the Chief Executive Office (CEO) of Adelaide Brighton, effective from May 2014. He will succeed the Managing Director and current CEO Mark Chellew who will retire at this time. Previously Brydon was the company's Executive General Manager for Cement and Lime.

"Investment in the reliability and sustainability of our key cement and lime production assets has delivered significant results," said Chairman Les Hosking in tribute to Chellew.