India: LafargeHolcim subsidiary ACC’s profit in the first nine months of 2020 was US$130m, down by 13% year-on-year from US$149m in the corresponding period of 2019. Sales also dropped, by 17% to US$1.31bn from US$1.58bn. Cement sales totalled US$1.24bn from US$1.45bn. An 18% decline in expenses to US$1.14m from US$1.39m failed to offset the effects of a price drop in the first half of 2020 due to decreased demand.

India: BK Birla Group subsidiary Mangalam Cement has launched Mangalam ProMaxX, a premium fly ash Portland pozzolana cement (PPC) that it says boasts “high one-day strength and also high 28-day ultimate strength.” The company says that the new cement is “an environmentally-friendly alternative with all the performance abilities of Mangalam Cement’s Birla Uttam cement.”

India: Motilal Oswal Securities predicts that Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech Cement’s second-quarter profit is likely to rise by 100% year-on-year in the 2021 financial year, which began on 1 April 2020, to US$161m from US$80.5m in the second quarter of the 2020 financial year. The Economic Times newspaper has reported that the analysts expect an increase in sales of 3.5% to US$1.36bn from US$1.31bn, an increase in cement volumes of 3.9% to 19.4Mt from 18.7Mt, a price drop and a fall in costs in the quarter, which ended on 30 September 2020. The analysts added that cement makers may show volume growth in the seasonally weak quarter due to pent-up demand as the economy has reopened following coronavirus-related disruption.

Global Cement apologies to UltraTech Cement for the previous version of this article that wrongly suggested that the company had made the forecast

India: JK Cement has increased the capacity of its Katni wall putty plant in Madhya Pradesh to 700,000t/yr from 400,000t/yr. Projects Today News has reported that the putty consists mainly of JK Cement white cement. The company now has a wall putty production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr.