Cement News tagged: International
India: Malabar Cements to resume Cherthala operations
Malabar Cements Limited (MCL) will resume operations at its Cherthala unit in the Indian state of Kerala, by the end of this month, having secured uninterrupted clinker supplies. K Padmakumar, managing director of MCL told 'The Hindu' that a ship carrying 27,010t of clinker had reached the Cochin port from Fujairah, which would be transported by road to Cherthala soon. The unit stopped fun...
US December shipments – preliminary data
Portland and blended cement shipments in December 2014 reached 6.24Mt, preliminary data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) shows. This takes full-year shipments to 88.53Mt, according to the initial indicators. Imports during December amounted to 545,259t, while for the full year they reached 7.31Mt. Clinker production for the final month of the year was 6.46Mt. For the full year clinker ou...
EAC producers call for review and uniformity of standards
Regional producers in the East African Community are calling for cement and limestone standards to be reviewed and harmonised in accordance with international best practices. According to reports by AllAfrica news, the move follows complaints from producers over lack of uniformity on standards that govern the industry, which they said affects competitiveness of the sector and ultimately intra...
Ghana: calls for end to bagged imports
The Strategy and Corporate Affairs Director of GHACEM, Dr George Dawson-Ahmoah, has called on the country’s government to ban imports of bagged cement into the country, stressing that domestic supplies are sufficient to meet local requirements. Speaking to newsmen in Takoradi after a meeting with the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, who was on a working visit to the co...
Malaysia: Tasek Corp full-year profit ahead
Tasek Corporation Bhd's net profit rose 11.86 per cent to MYR105.4m (US$29.1m) compared to MYR93.90m a year earlier despite heightened competition. Revenue rose to MYR656.06m compared to MYR121.04m in 2013. The Malaysia based cement producer attributed the better to performance to higher domestic cement demand and improved ready-mix concrete prices. “The ongoing mass rapid transit projects a...
Mexico: LH merger green light
Mexico’s Federal Commission for Economic Competition (Cofece) has granted approval for the merger of Lafarge and Holcim (LH). Lafarge is a market player in Mexico through an indirect stake in ELC Tenedora de Cementos, which produces white and grey cement in its plants in Hidalgo state. “On 16 December 2014, Lafarge sold its stake in ELC to Elementia and as such does no longer have any s...
Kenya: Pokot's power plant plans
Pokot Cement plans to construct a power plant to supply its upcoming cement works in Kenya as well as the national grid. Of the 64MW capacity, 50MW will be sold to the national grid, according to a report by 'The Star' (Kenya). "The power generated will enable us to operate effectively and minimise our costs of operations apart from supplying more electricity to the national power grid," R...
Peru cement dispatches down 1.7% but 2015 forecast up
Peru’s cement dispatches fell 1.7 per cent in January due to an unfavourable construction climate and the change of local and regional governments, according to the country’s cement association, Asocem. In the first month of this year, 816,000t of cement was delivered – some 14Mt less than the year-ago period. Strong rains impacted on Peru’s building sector. However, cement production in...
Spain’s cement demand expands 5.2% in January
Spain’s cement consumption rose by 5.2 per cent YoY to 769,838t in January 2015, according to Oficemen, the domestic cement association. The latest figures show an acceleration in growth, which at the end of 2014 stood at 0.4 per cent and noted the first annual increase since 2007. Spanish cement consumption has now registered five consecutive months of YoY increases since September 2014. I...
Iranian full-year export expectations
Iran’s exports are expected to reach 18Mt by the end of the current Iranian calendar year ending 20 March 2014, an Iranian official has said. Secretary of the Guild Association of Iran’s Cement Industry Abdolreza Sheikhan said on Saturday that Iran exported 15.9mln tons of cement and clinker in the first ten months of this year (March 21, 2014-January 20, 2015), and added that the industry i...
AdBri secures Western Australia supply agreement
Adelaide Brighton has secured an ongoing supply agreement with a cement customer in Western Australia for a term of three years until 31 December 2017, the company announced in a statement today. Adelaide Brighton currently supplies approximately 50 per cent of the customer’s requirements in Western Australia under the current agreement which expired at the end of last year. Martin Brydon, ...
Beni Suef begins construction of coal mill, Egypt
Beni Suef Cement has began the construction of the coal mill worth EGP200m (US$26.3m), to be used as an alternative to natural gas and heavy fuel oil at its cement plant in Egypt. Farouk Mustafa, managing director of the company, said he expects the project to be completed in October, adding that the project is being partly funded through a EGP100m loan with Egyptian Gulf Bank. Mustafa sa...
Semen Baturaja reports January sales decline
State-owned cement producer Semen Baturaja recorded a 9.7 per cent decline in January sales volumes, due to increased rainfall and weakening commodity prices which resulted in property and infrastructure developments being delayed. "Until the end of January of this year, we managed to sell 90,764t valued at IDR87.552bn," corporate secretary Zulfikri Subli told local press. However, the c...
SITA to start commissioning new SRF facility, UK
SITA UK is to start the commissioning process for its solid recovered (SRF) plant in Rugby to be used at Cemex UK's local cement works. The processing plant will undergo a series of commissioning tests over the next few months before starting full-scale production of the trademarked Climafuel SRF in the summer. The residual waste material arriving at the site will primarily be collected from...
Japanese producers increase exports
Japanese cement producers have increased export levels in a bid to help offset a slowdown in domestic consumption due to a slump in housing investment. According to the Japanese Cement Association, the country’s exports rose by four per cent to 9.11Mt in 2014, marking the first increase in six years. A Nikkei Report stated that Japanese cement makers are heightening exports to tighten the ...
Saudi full-year output update
Saudi Arabia, the largest cement producer in the GCC, produced over 57Mt of cement in 2014, according to a report in Arab News. Demand in the kingdom continues to grow fuelled by huge mega projects including include railways, airports, stadiums, medical cities, utilities, and petrochemical facilities. Saudi Arabia is the largest cement producer in the GCC with 63Mta, accounting for 50 per c...