Brazilian cement consumption up 34% YoY in March

Brazil's cement market expanded 34.2 per cent to 5.48Mt in March 2021 when compared with March 2020, according to the country’s cement association, SNIC.

Market growth was the strongest in the south, where sales increased 45.3 per cent YoY from 682,000t to 991,000t in March 2021, followed by sales in the northeast, which expanded by 43.6 per cent to 1,127,000t from 785,000t. In the central-western part of Brazil offtake rose by 37.9 per cent to 571,000t from 414,000t while in the north, the smalles market, sales were up 33.8 per cent YoY to 210,000t from 157,000t. Brazil’s largest market, the southeast, saw a 26.3 per cent YoY advance in sales to 2,581,000t in March 2021 from 2,044,000t.

The increase in sales is attributed to favourable weather, the maintenance of real estate works and self-construction. However, cement sales per working day, fell by 6.3 per cent MoM due to “the anticipation of holidays and restrictions on circulation and the functioning of the market,” said the association. Increasing unemployment, falling incomes and rising inflation were cited as additional factors in the decline.

“Despite the absolute numbers pointing to a robust growth, we have to be cautious, because as shown by the result per working day in the comparison of the last months, there was a retraction of 6.3 per cent, due to the anticipation of holidays, the closing of trade and the fall in the wage bill. In this scenario of countless uncertainties, any type of projection of product demand would be an exercise in futurology without any reliable database,” said SNIC President, Paulo Camillo Penna.

Exports saw a 120 per cent uptick to 33,000t in March 2021 from 15,000t in March 2020.

January-March 2021
In the first quarter of 2020 domestic cement sales reached 15.16Mt, up 18.7 per cent YoY from the year-ago period, when heavy rains and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted sales.

In the southeast, sales increased by 17.5 per cent to 7.119Mt in the 1Q21, while in the northeast they advanced 19.3 per cent to 3.226Mt. The south saw offtake increase by 19.4 per cent to 2.587Mt, followed by the central-west were it rose to 23.7 per cent – the largest increase in the country – to 1.632Mt. In the north the market expanded by 14.2 per cent to 596,000t.

Exports increased 122 per cent from 41,000t in the 1Q20 to 91,000t in the 1Q21.