Global Cement News

Belarus: Russia's Eurocement Group is ready to invest US$70 – 80m in a project to upgrade cement production facilities in Belarus, according to the minister of Architecture and Construction, Anatoly Chernyi.

"Eurocement offered to help us to switch the cement production plants from the wet process of cement production to the dry process," said Chernyi. Further negotiations will be held between the participants of the project to upgrade the facilities by 2017. The government has already approved the plans. The minister stressed that the wet process of cement production is energy consuming and costly.

The current combined capacity of the Belarusian cement plants is 9.5Mt/yr of cement, of which 5.4Mt is produced by dry kilns.

On 31 January 2014, the Québec government announced that it would invest US$350m in a new US$1bn, 2.2Mt/yr cement plant and port facility, to be operated by McInnis Cement at Port-Daniel. To say that this has prompted outrage in the industry is an understatement. Rival cement producers, including Lafarge and Ciments Québec have been unanimous in condemning the funding, which they see as an unjustified affront to fair competition in the province's cement industry. There was an angry response on the Global Cement LinkedIn Group, with dissatisfaction on a number of levels.

Firstly, established manufacturers highlight that the Québec cement market is in a slump, with 100-150 members of Métallos, the United Steelworkers union, currently on rolling temporary furloughs at any one time. There is over-capacity as it is. How will another cement plant help this situation? One contributor to the Global Cement LinkedIn Group said that the funding was like, "Taking the money I pay as taxes to break my legs." Another said, "Imagine our tax dollars heavily subsidising our direct competitor - totally unacceptable!"

Secondly, the government will have a direct interest in the cement industry, diverting public funds to a sector that (in the West) is traditionally left to its own devices. What does the government have to gain from this move? Well, there are suggestions that the awarding of future government cement and concrete contracts can no longer be fair due to the rather obvious conflict of interest. Could the government effectively award contracts to itself? Arguments from the government and McInnis that its distribution will be outside the areas served by the other plants don't seem to wash with the established producers.

Thirdly, there are fingers pointed at the Gaspasia paper mill project, a failed government-funded installation that was not established in the 1990s at a cost to the taxpayer of US$300m. It is unlikely that any of the parties involved would like to see a repeat at Port-Daniel.

Finally, the Canadian government appears to have turned its back on its own 'Wood First' policy, signed in April 2013, which stated that wood should be preferred in construction over cement and steel due to environmental concerns over embodied CO2. At the time Canadian cement manufacturers were at pains to point out that cement and concrete constructions were actually sustainable in comparison to many other building materials, especially with repect to long-term use and minimisation of energy consumed during a building's lifespan. At worst this seems to be a government U-turn but it could yet get more ugly. Now, with funding for new cement capacity, Québec appears to have 'listened' to the cement producers. How long before some cynics point to this change as evidence that the government wanted McInnis Cement to happen all along?

Whether a gross miscalculation or a deliberate ploy by the government, the McInnis Cement saga will not be going away. Ciments Québec and Lafarge will line up to fight the decision and, in litigation-heavy North America, this story could run and run.

Ukraine: Yugtsement company has dismissed its commercial director Tetiana Kazakevych. She was dismissed in compliance with the resignation statement that she submitted previously, according to the Ukranian News Agency. She had occupied the positions since 2001. The company is part of Dyckerhoff Ukraine, which runs three cement plants in the country.

France: The Vicat Group has reported that sales by its cement business fell by 4% year-on-year to Euro1.11bn in 2013 from Euro1.16bn in 2012. No reason was provided for this decline. The French building materials manufacturer produced 18Mt of cement in 2013. Across all business lines the company's sales remained flat at Euro2.29bn.

By region, Vicat saw cement sales fall by 7.6% year-on-year in France due to poor weather and 'challenging' economic conditions. Cement sales rose by 6.3% in the US, led by infrastructure growth in California. In Turkey cement sales rose by 16.7% and in West Africa sales fell by 4.7%.

Trinidad: Trinidad Cement (TCL) is planning to increase its share of the oil well cement market, according to its chairman Satnarine Bachew. The Caribbean cement producer has been producing well specification cement for over 15 years for the local market but it has now decided to sell the product more widely.

Bachew said that Halliburton has been TCL's main customer, testing the product to a depth of 5000m. TCL intends to follow current demand and build its presence in Central America.