Global Cement News

Spain: On 4 March 2013 Cemex España, the Spanish subsidiary of Mexican cement group Cemex, reached an agreement with Spanish trade unions to reduce the number of employees who will be affected by the planned downsizing plan. The staff reduction measure now will affect 127 people instead of the initially planned 156 people.

Spain: Spanish cement producer Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) has announced that it reduced its loss to Euro147m in 2012 compared to Euro327m in 2011, a 55% year-on-year drop.

The improvement was due to the company's restructuring plan Plan NewVal, which aims to adapt production capacity to the current demand. According to data from the country's association of cement producers Oficemen, cement demand fell by 34% in Spain in 2012.

CPV generated a revenue of Euro653.7m in 2012, down by 12.9% year-on-year, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of Euro69.8m, a 55% decrease.

Indonesia: Thai cement giant Siam Cement Group (SCG) will further expand its presence in Indonesia by building a new cement plant and acquiring more companies in the country, according to a company executive.

Chief finance officer Chaovalit Ekabut said that SCG expected to start the construction of a greenfield cement plant in Sukabumi, West Java with a total investment of US$356m."We expect to start construction this year and finish by 2015. We hope to commence operations at this cement plant in the second half of 2015," Chaovalit said on 27 February 2013.The cement plant will have a production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr.

Chaovalit added that SCG had decided to be careful and make small-scale investments in the cement market in Indonesia, which has grown rapidly on the back of increased housing demand and infrastructure projects.

"Some projections calculate that cement capacity (in Indonesia) may reach 100Mt/yr in another five to six years. This is very dangerous because you face a kind of bubble. When the demand seems to be very high, people build more and more plants and then everything stops and you end up having so much extra capacity," Chaovalit said."I hope we shall not fall into the same trap again. Companies should look at the market and continue to invest to serve the demand and not to overexploit something that is not real."

Colombia: Growth in cement and concrete sales has helped Colombia's largest cement firm, Cementos Argos, to increase its 2012 profits by 5.9% to US$218m, the company has announced in a financial statement.

Overall revenue was up by 23% to US$2.44bn in 2012 compared to 2011. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 29% to US$440m. Cementos Argos increased its cement sales by 6% to 10.8Mt in 2012. In the company's Colombian division cement sales rose by 2% to 5.1Mt. In the US division cement sales rose by 13% to 1.6Mt. In its Caribbean division cement sales rose by 21% to 2.8Mt.

"There was a positive trend towards accelerated growth in segments in both infrastructure and construction in general," said the statement.

With the annual results for 2012 in from Lafarge, Holcim and CRH we now return to look at how the European markets coped.

Holcim summed up the mood perfectly in its media release on its annual results for 2012. First it pushed the big positive (net sales up overall) but then finished its first (!) sentence with: '...despite the difficult economic environment in Europe.'

Overall in Europe, Lafarge saw its cement volumes fall by 9% to 29.6Mt from 32.5Mt. Notably sales volumes fell significantly in Spain and Greece, by 26% and 37% respectively.

Holcim saw its cement volumes fall by 2% in Europe to 26.3Mt from 26.8Mt. There were specific country figures from Holcim but it did comment that the 'severe crisis' in southern Europe had 'contaminated' economies further north such as a France, Benelux, Germany and Switzerland.

CRH was less candid about its cement business in Europe although it did report that its sales revenues fell by 10% to Euro2.69bn in 2012 from Euro2.99bn in 2011. Notable losses occurred in Poland (11% volume decline), Ireland (17% decline) and Spain (30% decline).

These figures compare against a 4% decline in volumes in Western and Northern Europe to 22.1Mt from 21.3Mt by HeidelbergCement, a 13% drop in overall net sales to Euro3.05bn in Cemex's Northern Europe section and a 16% drop in volumes to 16Mt from Italcementi in its Central Western Europe region.

The question to ask at this point is how HeidelbergCement and Holcim managed to suffer smaller losses compared to everybody else. Less exposure to southern Europe is one answer. Depressingly though they both suffered similar drops in profit indicators such as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to the others (20% and 33% respectively).

Both Holcim and CRH are expecting continued tough conditions in Europe in 2013. However, both companies are mildly optimistic that the worst has passed, with talk of the work of the European Central Bank supporting peripheral Eurozone economies showing some effect. Lafarge doesn't even mention Europe in its outlook.

As mentioned in Global Cement Weekly #87 on 13 February 2013, EU regional GDP growth is forecast to become positive in 2013. Everybody is going to be watching the European quarterly results for the cement majors in 2013 very carefully indeed. In the meantime all every cement producer with a presence in Europe can do is to carry on cutting costs.