Global Cement News

US: Saint-Gobain has signed an agreement for the sale of its US-based fibre cement siding business to Plycem USA, a subsidiary of Elementia of Mexico. The transaction is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2014, subject to standard closing conditions.

The business is part of Saint-Gobain's Exterior Products activity of the Construction Products Sector. It manufactures and sells fibre cement siding, trim and accessory products for the US and Canadian residential and commercial construction markets. The business employs close to 250 people and has three US production sites at Roaring River, North Carolina, Terre Haute, Indiana and White City, Oregon.

Kenya: The Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development has recommended that the East African Portland Cement (EAPCC) directors be investigated over a chaotic annual general meeting held on 17 December 2013.

Wilson Songa, principal secretary of the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development, said that the conduct of EAPCC chairman and board members, including chief executive Kepha Tande and directors Titus Naikuni and Hamish Keith and company secretary J Maonga should be investigated in relation to the AGM.

Songa argued that the AGM should be declared a sham and the company was directed by the CMA not to affect any of the resolutions passed at the meeting. Songa wants the CMA to order EAPCC to reconvene the AGM and an independent person nominated by the capital markets regulator to oversee the meeting. Songa also wants the CMA to confirm that the nomination and election of Didier Tresarrieu as a director was null and void since it was not carried out in accordance with articles of the company.

The current stand-off re-ignites a long-running battle for the control of the cement maker between the government and France's Lafarge. The Treasury holds a 25% stake in EAPCC while NSSF holds 27% shareholding. This gives the government a 52% stake in the company, which has seen it ranked as a state corporation.

US: Solidia Technologies has reported the chemical properties, manufacture and performance qualities of a sustainable cement that can reduce the carbon footprint of cement and concrete products by up to 70%.

Solidia Cement™is made from the same raw materials and equipment as OPC, but is adaptable to a wide variety of cement formulations and production methods, offering a sustainable and performance-enhancing alternative.

Solidia Cement clinker is produced at 1200°C, approximately 250°C lower than OPC clinker. The cement is a non-hydraulic material that is composed primarily of low-lime-containing calcium silicate phases such as wollastonite / pseudowollastonite (CaO.SiO₂) and rankinite (3CaO.2SiO₂). The setting and hardening characteristics are derived from the reaction between CO₂ and the calcium silicates. During the carbonation process, calcite (CaCO₃) and silica (SiO₂) form and are responsible for the concrete strength development.

Concrete products produced with Solidia Cement are manufactured using the same mixing and forming processes as OPC-based concrete and sequester up to 300kg of CO₂/t of cement. The reduced CO₂ emissions, combined with the ability of the cement to sequester CO₂ during concrete curing, renders a CO₂ footprint (associated with both the manufacturing and use) that is reduced by up to 70%.

"For over 50 years, scientists have tried to cure concrete with CO₂ knowing the resulting product would be stronger and more stable. Solidia Technologies is the first to make this commercially viable. Our current focus is testing additional applications with an even wider variety of concrete formulations and manufacture methods to facilitate adoption across the globe," said Solidia Chief Technology Officer Nicholas DeCristofaro, who co-authored the paper with principal scientist Sada Sahu.

Solidia Concrete™will be explored in a companion paper that is due to be released in January 2014.

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.