Russia: KuzbassTransCement’s total volume of cement transported by rail in 2019 was 2.98Mt – up by 8% from 2.76Mt in 2018. Throughout the year, it implemented upgrades worth US$29m to its transportation facilities, including the lease of an additional 145 covered wagons, 346 cement hoppers and 90 dump cars, representing roughly a 14% expansion to its fleet.

Finland: Machinery manufacturer Metso Corporation has announced plans to consolidate its European warehouse operations, currently spread over Norway, Sweden, the UK, France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Russia, into a single location. Metso Corporation customer logistics senior vice president Jarkko Aro said the move ‘would also enable considerable savings in end-to-end freight costs and reduced CO2 emissions.’ 40 employees are potentially affected. Metso Corporation has not disclosed any locations under consideration for the facility.

India: Ramco Group subsidiary Ramco Cements has invested US$0.7m in a 46% share in Lynks Logistics. The company will serve the 17Mt/yr-installed capacity producer’s logistics and distribution needs for all of India.

India: Having announced that it will not participate in bidding for Emami Cement, Shree Cement has announced a planned increase to its production capacity of at least 13.1Mt/yr to 55.0Mt/yr or more by 28 February 2023 from 41.9Mt/yr. It would do this through as yet undisclosed upgrades worth a total of US$1.26bn. The Business Standard newspaper has suggested that the measure is aimed at taking on UltraTech, the expected winner in the auction for Emami Cement’s 5.6Mt/yr-capacity installed assets (under expansion to 8.7Mt/yr).

A source of additional capital for Shree Cement’s planned expansion will be a qualified institutional placement (QIP) through which it has raised US$337m. The company acknowledged that it might reach its target through acquisitions from other producers, for which it would not exceed US$80/t of capacity.