Global Cement News

Nepal: Hetauda Cement Industry will restart production in the first week of April 2025 after completing machinery maintenance, securing raw materials and reaching agreement with employees, according to local news reports. The state-owned plant halted production on 1 October 2024. It has a capacity of 16,000 bags/day.

Acting general manager Nabin Kumar Karna said “It took some time to repair the machinery as it was old and damaged. The machines were installed when the industry was first established in 1977, and replacing them immediately was not possible due to financial constraints. Currently, we have about 100t of coal in stock, and more is expected to arrive starting tomorrow, so the raw material supply is not a major concern.”

Karna said that the electricity issues the company had previously faced had been resolved, and the Nepal Electricity Authority were ‘committed’ to providing a regular electricity supply.

Pakistan: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) government will replace ore-based royalties on cement with a 6% royalty on the ex-factory price.

The proposed change will raise costs for producers and follows a similar royalty imposed by the Punjab government in August 2024. Analysts said that manufacturers would need to raise cement prices significantly to offset the impact of the increased royalty.

South Korea: Domestic cement sales fell by 25% year-on-year to 4.45Mt in the first two months of 2025, according to the Korea Cement Association. This is reportedly the lowest number recorded for domestic sales in January-February in the past five years. Sales during the same period in 2020–2022 exceeded 6Mt, and in 2023 reached 7.12Mt due to delayed post-Covid construction.

Producers have suspended eight of 35 production lines and may halt two more due to high inventories, which reached 3.4Mt at the end of February 2025, close to 90% of storage capacity.

A Korea Cement Association official said “Unless the construction economy recovers, the management crisis in the cement industry caused by the severe drop in demand will continue for the time being.”

Philippines: The Department of Trade and Industry has imposed a preliminary safeguard measure on cement imports, primarily targeting Vietnam, which supplied 94% of imported cement in 2024.

The measure follows a finding that rising imports between 2019 and 2024 harmed domestic producers. The tariff applies to 40kg bags and will be in place for 200 days while the Philippine Tariff Commission conducts a final investigation. Vietnamese cement exporters have been advised to ‘monitor developments.’

UK: The University of Sheffield, the Sellafield power station, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the UK National Nuclear Laboratory have launched a €1.2m research partnership to explore the use of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) in nuclear waste encapsulation. The project will study how characteristics and amounts of calcined clays can produce cement encapsulants that support safe and reliable nuclear waste conditioning and disposal at Sellafield.

Head of the Sheffield research team Brant Walkley said “This partnership will enhance our overall programme of work focused on development of new cement technologies for the nuclear sector, and will enable our cross-sector team based at both the University of Sheffield and Sellafield to further strengthen its position as a global leader in cement science and engineering.”