Australia: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has started operating a cement terminal at Port Kembla in New South Wales. The Japan-based cement producer owns a 30% share in the company running the unit, which operates as Falcon CP. The terminal has a silo capacity of 36,000t. Sumitomo Osaka Cement says it plans to use the terminal as a means to increase its activity in the local market. It runs its regional headquarters in Sydney trading as SOC Oceania.
InterGroup Mining secures Euro60m towards kaolin mining project in Australia
Australia/UK: InterGroup Mining has secured just under Euro60m from Luxembourg-based investment group GEM Global Yield as part of a share subscription facility. The Australia-based mining company says it will use the funds primarily for the ongoing development and commercialisation of its Brilliant Brumby kaolin and gold project in Queensland. The company hopes to sell the kaolin for use in cement and concrete production or as a feedstock for high purity alumina (HPA). It says it will be able to drawdown the funds over a 36-month term following a public listing of its common stock.
Neil Miller, the chairman of InterGroup said, “The GEM facility provides a major accelerator for InterGroup as we continue to prove up the scale of our Brilliant Brumby project and the optimal development path for the co-mining opportunity of kaolin and gold. It likewise enables us to continue our important research and development work into the new carbon reduction markets of potential scale that our minerals serve and which complement their existing known end markets.” InterGroup is currently working towards a potential stock market flotation in the second half of 2021.
Atlantic Group to receive tax breaks for proposed cement plant in Cameroon
Cameroon: A subsidiary of Ivory Coast-based Atlantic Group has signed an agreement with the Cameroon Investment Promotion Agency giving it tax incentives towards building a new cement plant. It plans to build a 1Mt/yr cement plant in the Port of Kribi, according to Business in Cameroon. Construction work on the plant is scheduled to start in 2021 with completion by 2024 at the latest. The project has an investment of around US$70m. Atlantic Group inaugurated the 1.5Mt/yr Société Ciment Côte d'Ivoire (SCCI) near Abidjan, Ivory Coast in January 2021.
Buzzi Unicem reports sales growth as Italian market recovers
Italy: Buzzi Unicem’s net sales grew by 5.8% year-on-year to Euro1.61bn in the first half of 2021 from Euro1.52bn in the same period of 2020. Its sales volumes of cement and clinker rose by 10.9% to 14.8Mt from 13.4Mt. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 12.3% to Euro352m from Euro314m. The group reported cement sales volumes growth in all territories with the exception of Poland, and Germany to a lesser extent. It also noted growth in ready-mixed concrete sales volumes of 7% to 5.8Mm3 with development in Italy, Poland and Ukraine more than compensating for ‘unfavourable’ changes in the US, Germany and the Czech Republic.
