Cemex: US far from fully recovering

Cemex has said that it is pleased with the way its US business is progressing but that it is still far from fully recovering.

Speaking to Reuters, Maher Al-Haffar, Cemex's vice president of corporate communications and investor relations, said in an interview, said: "We are cautious and we are far from a full recovery in the US business but the trend is certainly in the right direction."

In the first nine months of this year Cemex’s US turnover recovered and rose by 19.2 per cent to US$2,305.4 and the EBITDA swung back into profit to the dune of US$29.8m, compared with a US$73.8m loss a year earlier. At the trading level, the loss was reduced by 28.7 per cent to US$347.4m. 

Grey cement deliveries showed a 16 per cent improvement in the nine months, with half of that coming in the third quarter. Shipments of aggregates improved by an underlying 10 per cent, compared with an 11 per cent decline in the previous year, and prices were one per cent ahead.  In ready-mixed concrete, underlying deliveries improved by 16 per cent and average prices by about three per cent.