International Cement Review Editor's Blog

The UAE cement industry must to restructure rapidly or face long-term financial distress

2010-02-11T10:47:00Z

The massive bull-run of cement demand in the UAE finally reached its peak in 2008, when demand reached 21.7Mt, up three-fold on the 6.9Mt consumed in 2003. This extraordinary growth is even more startling when one considers per capita consumption reached 4,345kg at this time – over ten times the global average. Throughout these boom years, supply shortages became common-place, resulting in rapid price inflation as producers sought to capitalise on the scarcity of cement (often funnelling their...(read more)

Emissions trading needs serious overhaul

2009-12-10T18:51:00Z

News from the UK Press indicates that ArcelorMittal, Europe’s major steel producer currently stands to benefit from a €1.15 billion windfall from European “carbon credits” given to it under the European emissions trading scheme (ETS). An investigation has revealed that ArcelorMittal has been given far more carbon permits than it needs. In fact, it apparently has the largest allocation of any organisation in Europe. ArcelorMittal is now free to sell its surplus permits on the...(read more)

Turkish cement – little delight for local producers

2009-10-27T11:12:00Z

The prospects for the Turkish cement market are looking increasingly dim, at least over the next 2-3 years. Domestic demand for 2009 is expected to have fallen by around 10 per cent to approximately 38Mt, while capacity on the other hand, shows now sign of easing and is, in fact, likely to increase to 60Mt by 2012. A further four new works had been scheduled for completion in 2010, but most of these projects are now likely to be delayed by a further year. On top of this, there are the two new 2.0Mta...(read more)

Turning up the heat on old US plants

2009-09-10T15:33:00Z

The opening, at the end of last month, of Holcim's new 4.0mt per annum cement works at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, on the Mississippi river is further increasing the pressure on the remaining wet process plants that are becoming increasingly less competitive. While two wet process Holcim plants in Missouri and Michigan have been permanently closed, these account for only just over half of the capacity now being brought on stream at Ste. Genevieve. With Ste. Genevieve, by far the largest US cement...(read more)

The ghost of the Mary Nour

2009-06-10T13:58:00Z

The impending publication of a 300-page report by Mexican competition authorities is expected to shed new light on the saga of a 26,219t shipment of cement aboard the Mary Nour, refused entry into the Mexican cement market back in July 2004. The Mexican Federal Commission of Competencia (CFC) report is expected to be rather critical of Cemex and some specific government administrators over their role in this import shipment of cement, which after lengthy delays and apparently some unwarranted threats,...(read more)

Global warning - cement growth slowdown?

2009-05-01T11:19:00Z

The recently published Global Cement Report Eighth Edition contains a wealth of very useful cement industry data, with analysis and statistical summaries of over 170 countries. This new publication should form an essential reference source for all those involved in the worldwide cement industry. Of course, I have a vested interest in telling you this, in that I led the editing team who compiled this latest masterpiece and thus stand to gain from its sales. Equally, I am also responsible for the book’s...(read more)

Don't try this at home

2009-03-09T14:15:00Z

The UK papers are full of news and debate about quantitative easing. At first sight one might be forgiven for thinking this was a new type of laxative but the reality is that this is pure financial jargon for printing money – except in todays hi-tech world one doesn’t print money any more, one apparently creates instant money electronically by adding (say) 150 billion to the US Federal Reserve, or the Bank of England’s balance sheet and there you have it – the country is 150...(read more)

UAE cement producers face unsettled future

2009-02-03T09:26:00Z

With eye-catching newspaper headlines indicating that much of the UAE is now facing a boom to bust scenario, a stream of daily news highlighting the wholesale cancellation, or at least a halt to, various major building contracts and, not least, with Dubai’s major road network seemingly a bit less congested, even during rush hour periods, it’s apparent that the global credit crunch is now being felt in the Emirates, despite the region’s massive oil and gas wealth and its resultant...(read more)

Truth, dare or consequences

2008-12-17T20:27:00Z

It’s perhaps the sign of a simple mind, but I never fail to smile at the recollection of the Woody Allen quotation that the definition of a financial advisor is someone who you pay to invest your money …until it's all gone. Its resonance in today’s financial meltdown conditions is particularly apt, but the underlying truth of our current malaise also seems to stem from gross under-regulation of the banking and financial sectors, greedy and at times dishonest bankers and, not...(read more)

A Belgian, a Canadian and an Egyptian walk into a cement company...

2008-10-12T19:05:00Z

The Lafarge ownership saga continues. Last month saw Albert Freres - Group Bruxelles Lambert - seemingly spend close to Euro 100m mopping up Lafarge shares on the French stock exchange, according to official filings, at prices ranging between Euro 70-80 per share, and in consequence now pushing up its stake in Lafarge to almost 25 per cent, while Nassef Sawiris, of Orascom fame, has his own sizeable Lafarge stake at around the 13 per cent level. And if we are to believe reports, both groups have...(read more)

Time for a rethink on East-West détente?

2008-09-04T15:48:00Z

The recent brief conflict in Georgia still has some way to run with the Russian’s apparently in no hurry to return to the former status quo. There are two sides to every story, of course, but the Russian view that the Georgian president should be branded as a ‘lunatic’ does carry some weight, despite strong international protestations that the Russian response has, and remains, somewhat exaggerated. It was however, good to see HeidelbergCement report that its Georgian facilities...(read more)

Spend an evening with John and Jane

2008-06-07T04:29:00Z

“That’s where John McCain was shot down in 1967”, my taxi driver said rather nonchalantly as we weaved our way through Hanoi’s heavy traffic back to the airport. I looked over at the city park and the placid lake into which the next presidential hopeful had plunged in his Skyhawk plane during his 23rd bombing mission over Vietnam. “A large crowd pulled him out and attacked him” the driver continued “and he then spent a month in a local hospital recovering...(read more)

Financials under the spotlight

2008-04-24T14:38:00Z

At the end of March 08, Cemex had a net debt US$18,813m disclosed, and a further undisclosed amount of debt in the form of perpetual notes that were lumped together with minorities. Cemex has not yet published its accounts for 2007, but at the end of 2006, perpetual debt amounted to US$1250m. Assuming that in assessing the perpetual debt, this accounted for a similar portion of what is described as 'minorities' at the end of 2006, the actual net debt at the end of March 08 would read US$21,326m, suggesting a gearing level of 124.8%. This is, in fact, now a higher gearing level than the 120.6% seen three years earlier in the wake of the acquisition of RMC. Since then, Cemex has raised the equivalent of some US$257m through its sale of 9.5% financial stake in Axtel a Mexican telecommunications company.

The fall in US interest rates has helpfully reduced the cost of financing the acquisition of Rinker that became effective last July. The failure to conclude the proposed major sale of assets in Catalonia, Austria and Hungary; as well as two US cement plants and a large number of downstream businesses in the United States to CRH, has left Cemex with a stretched balance sheet, with only the sale of the assets that Cemex was under an obligation to sell to satisfy the US anti-trust authorities actually concluded. It could be argued that the assets that Cemex failed to sell are worth less now than they were at the time, at least as far as the US and Spanish operations are concerned.

The net result of buying RMC and now, Rinker, has been to reduce Cemex' dependence on developing markets, which, from an investment point of view at least, had been seen as the Mexican group's main point of attraction. While the other four of the five top global cement producers have been, and are, investing heavily in the two largest cement markets in the world, China and India, Cemex has tended to avoid these. While Russia, another major growing cement market, is now apparently off the radar, which must be disappointing to some Cemex insiders.

On a brighter note, the proposed nationalisation of the Venezuelan cement market, where Cemex is the largest operator, may be helpful to Cemex from a simple cash inflow point of view, but will leave the group increasingly dependent on its three largest markets of Mexico, the United States and Spain for its main cash generation. Returns from Great Britain and Germany still leave much to be desired and this is also not a good time to review Spain’s construction outlook, but the signs from Madrid are not favourable, at least over the short term.

Will Cemex run out of cash? Most certainly not! But if the US recession begins to deepen, with neighbouring Mexico then getting sucked in, plus some heavy clouds becoming more visible in southern Europe, it might need a bit more than the continuing sale of various financial instruments to keep this cement major in tip-top condition.

Bulls, bears and stags

2008-03-20T17:07:00Z

I am not a successful investor. I classify myself as one who would, at times, buy high and sell low. One who would finally take the plunge to buy tech stocks the day before the market crashed back in 2000 or whenever, and one, when offered Cemex stock at giveaway prices back in 1996, thought that they were over-valued. (Anyway, my defense at the time - and still today - was that it would have been unethical to purchase).

So when people talk about markets in the light of the recent US and UK banking upsets I tread a cautious path, nodding wisely at some erudite analyst in full flow, tut-tutting at the latest financial shenanigans and hoping that the people who manage my pension pot are not, as I write, hot-footing it to the Cayman Islands with the remnants of my fund in a sack.

Are we heading for melt-down? And what does this mean for our own industry. A slow-down or perhaps even an end to continued pronounced globalisation trends? Global economic growth over the past few years has undoubtedly been strong. More importantly India and China have both contributed significantly to narrowing the divide between the developing and developed world, but today, the underlying global tensions look to be rising. The ill-conceived war in Iraq has helped fuel a quadrupling of fuel prices since 2003, Asia now has a massive stockpile of dollars - and America is now in hock to the world. The myth of a strong dollar has also been put to rest.

As Josef Stiglitz, a Nobel Laurate in Economics wrote recently: The game is up. China is now facing inflationary pressures, and if it revalues its currency as it is being pressed to do by the US, this will translate into much higher costs worldwide. At the same time, the rise of bio-fuels as a means of reducing global warming, has meant that food and energy markets are becoming inter-linked, a lethal threat to many developing countries.

The real threat of runaway inflation is apparently returning to an economy near you, says Stiglitz, and unless we see through the need to raise interest rates relentlessly to meet requisite inflation targets, we should prepare for the worst. Another episode of stagflation - and a reminder to some – me included – of the mid-1970s when stags ruled the world.

Thinking of investing in the UAE? – wait for the new US president

2008-02-22T09:30:00Z

The recent Cemtech Conference in Dubai highlighted some interesting topics, many of which centred upon the current supply patterns for cement in the Middle East and, not least, intense debate over the continuing strength of the UAE market. Many analysts, have for some time been predicting an eventual melt-down in the local UAE construction sector, but this mix of oil, gas and service economies still remains very buoyant, and some local UAE cement producers we talked to were still virtually sold out for several months ahead. Reinforcing this pattern, Dubai city still has very much the feel of a gigantic, ever-expanding, construction site.

On the downside, more new cement capacity is still under construction or in planning throughout the UAE, in effect, pushing up potential local supply to over 25Mt in the near term, possibly even higher and one could be forgiven for thinking that this huge bubble will eventually burst. But quite when, nobody knows. Any views anyone?

A timely report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Swiss-based think-tank that attracts a wide variety of celebrity politicians, well-heeled industrialists and pop-stars with attitude, has recently published its outlook for the UAE region in the form of three distinct time-sensitive scenarios stretching to 2025, under the sub-titles: ‘The fertile gulf’, ‘oasis’ and ‘sandstorm’. All scenarios are possible, according to the authors.

Presently, local sentiment in the UAE is generally positive. Enhanced financial liquidity will continue to allow expansion of the private sector, investment in productive assets and upgrading public infrastructure. At the same time, the UAE also faces a range of challenges which could potentially threaten a stable and prosperous future for the country. Even without the threat of external disruption or lower oil prices, the continuing build-up of financial reserves will not last forever.

In fact, says the WEF report, the next five years will be crucial for the UAE and decisions made today could contribute towards building a sustainable and innovation economy, with a more balanced, integrated social structure. Alternatively, a reluctance to engage with controversial issues, coinciding with negative external events could create a future where the UAE enters a negative cycle of conflict and economic decline.

For example, in the WEF ‘sandstorm’ scenario, the current global slowdown causes a fall in oil prices which dramatically reverses when the US bombs Iran in 2009, when oil prices then rocket to US$125 per barrel. The resulting regional instability and oil price shock combined with an economic weakness in the US market then precipitates a further global slow-down, and massive fall in oil revenues …then…well you get the general on-going picture.

Given such a possible outlook, let’s hope the US public votes in the seemingly moderate Barack Obama for president in November . The Republican alternative: John McCain, might well be turn out to be something of an obamanation (ouch!). And before you plunge into UAE markets, download the full UAE scenario report at the WEF website (www. Weforum.org ) it makes for some interesting reading.