Cement News tagged: International
Cimpor outlines Latin America spend
Cimpor is to invest some BRL3bn (US$1.319bn) over the next four years which is expected to include new factories in Brazil and Argentina. Company CEO Ricardo Lima said the main objective is to reinforce Cimpor's position in Brazil where it operates in all regions except the north. The company is therefore gong to invest in a new unit in northern Brazil, probably Belem or Manaus, he told ...
Tanzania Portland optimistic on 2H turnaround
Tanzania Portland Cement Company expects a recovery in second half net profit thanks to reduced production costs. In the first six months of the year, net profit fell by over one-third to TZS19bn (US$11.8m) due to unregulated imports, power shortages and problems with its electric transformer, the HeidelbergCement group company had previously said. However, TPCC managing director, Pascal...
New Angola plant to begin commercial production by year-end
The Cuanza Sul cement plant will begin commercial production under the brand name Yeto, the company president, Manuela Vieira Lopes, has said. Final equipment assemply is now underway and the trial phase should begin in October, and production in December, Mr Vieira Lopes told Angop news agency. Earlier, plant manager Tembua Mucazo Roberto had said the plant would begin by producing 4200...
Lafarge in RDF joint venture, Pakistan
Lafarge Industrial Ecology International SA has announced a joint venture with Saif Holdings Ltd for the manufacture of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) to be used as alternative fuel. The agreement was signed between Pavel Cech, Regional Vice President Industrial Ecology, Lafarge and Hoor Yousafzai, Director Saif Group after conducting feasibility study for the development, installation and commissi...
Lusaka prices continue to rise, Zambia
The price of cement in the Zambian capital of Lusaka has continued to rise through the year, due to increased fuel and transportation costs. The average price across the city is now ZMW85 with traders citing increased costs of transportation compared to ZMW50 two years earlier. However, Lafarge Cement CEO Emmanuel Rigaux played down the increase saying they had no control over retail pri...
GMK and IKN sign waste heat recovery partnership, Germany
Germany-based companies GMK GmbH and IKN GmbH have entered into an exclusive partnership to develop and market waste heat recovery systems for the cement industry. On 16 September 2013, a memorandum of understanding was signed by Piacentini-Timm (GMK), Wilhelm Uebachs (GERMANIA Technologieholding), Klaas Windmöller and Justus von Wedel (both IKN). GMK, a specialist for power generating equi...
PCA sees higher demand growth from 2014
While an unusually wet spring and early summer impacted cement consumption in the first quarter of 2013, it has not put a dampener on the opportunity for strong growth in the construction sector in 2014 and beyond, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) writes in its latest forecast. The industry association sees cement consumption increasing by a modest four per cent in 2013, but will approa...
Ships transporting clinker collide at Chittagong port, Bangladesh
Three ships carrying clinker collided at Chittagong Port in southern Bangladesh earlier this week, causing partial interruptions to supplies. However, local production has not been affected due to regular imports. An official of the Chittagong Port told CemNet News that on 9 September 'Fortune Cloud', a Panama-flag bulk carrier (carrying 33,000t of clinker) arrived at Chittagong’s outer anc...
Semen Tonasa begins construction of West Sulawesi packing plant
State-owned Indonesian cement producer PT Semen Tonasa has begun construction of a new 300,000t capacity packing plant in the Belang Belang port area, Mamuju District, West Sulawesi. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony to launch construction of the IDR100bn project, Tonasa's president director, Unggul Attas, said the plant is being built in cooperation with PT Latanindo Graha Persana and is ex...
Indonesian sales down 5.8% In August
Indonesian cement sales fell 5.8 per cent to 3.3Mt in August 2013, according to latest data from the Indonesian Cement Association. Compared to July 2013, cement sales in Indonesia were down by 32 per cent, however, there was an almost two-week holiday in August (the Idul Fitri or Lebaran festivities that follow after the holy fasting month of Ramadan). Export of cement increased 2.4 per ...
DG Khan Cement plans greenfield plant, Pakistan
DG Khan Cement has been given the green light by its Board of Directors (BoD) to set up a greenfield plant in Pakistan, but plans for a Mozambique facility have been withdrawn. The Pakistan-based manufacturer announced it is to set up the new 2.6Mta facility in the Hub District, Lasbela in the Baluchistan Province near Karachi. Its BoD has asked management to initiate the process to establis...
S&P revises GCC’s outlook to stable, Mexico
Standard & Poor's has affirmed its B-rating for Mexico-based producer Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) and has revised the outlook from positive to stable. The rating reflects GCC's "aggressive financial risk profile and weak business risk profile" and is constrained by the company's geographic concentration, limited scale and less than adequate liquidity. The company's operations were...
Najran completes Line 2 maintenance, Saudi Arabia
Najran Cement has successfully completed maintenance and resumed operations of Kiln Line 2. The completion was extended by four days to 10 September to link line No 2 to a waste heat recovery plant currently being built by Sinoma Energy Conservation. The US$45m WHR project will have a power generation capacity of 27.1MW and will completed in March 2014.
Brazil's August cement sales slip 1.2%
Cement sales in Brazil fell 1.2 per cent YoY in August 2013 to 6.4Mt, latest data from local association SNIC shows. During the first eight months of the year, sales reached 46.4Mt, a rise of 1.9 per cent compared to the same period of the year before. Over the 12 month period of September 2012-August 2013, sales amounted to 69.2Mt, representing an increase of 2.1 per cent on the comparative...
Weaker rupiah impacts Semen Baturaja plant plans
PT Semen Baturaja is having to adjust its plan to develop a new factory due to the weakening of the rupiah against the US dollar. According to reports by the Jakarta Post, that the purchase of equipment, which makes up about 40-50 per cent of total investment costs, could be delayed. Semen Baturaja president director Pamudji Rahardjo told the newspaper that the company was working on a new...
New Kercim plant to be built in Le Havre, France
Kercim, which opened a cement plant in Loire-Montoir last February, will start construction of a new works in Le Havre in early 2014. It is expected that the new 0.6Mta works will gradually enter service, first as a grinding unit supplied by imported clinker in 2016. By 2020, it is envisaged to run to full capacity. Output from the plant is destined for the Paris region and transported by r...