INDIA: Cement cartel ignores threat

Tamil Nadu government’s warning that it would make arrangements to bring cement from neighbouring states to rein in the steep spike in prices has failed to evoke any response from cement manufacturers.

“The manufacturers are not ready to slash rates by even Rs 5 a bag. They do not seem to be bothered about the warning,” said Meganathan, a civil engineer. Though the construction industry has witnessed sharp hikes in cement and steel prices in the past, they have never been as steep and sudden as the current spurt. The price for a 50 kg bag, sold at Rs 145 a fortnight ago, is now selling at Rs 265.

Senior Congress legislator C. Gnanasekaran demanded that the government put an end to the windfall being reaped by a handful of manufacturers and break the cartel of powerful cement manufacturers in the state. “In Andhra Pradesh, cement is sold at less than Rs 100 a bag. If the cement producers are not listening to the government, they should be booked for cheating,” he said, suggesting that a mechanism be adopted to control prices.

It’s not promoters who are affected but thousands of construction workers and middleclass people who wish to have own homes, he added. “We’re disappointed that the government’s intervention has not made any impact,” said T. Chitty Babu, president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India. “All we want is that cement should be available at a reasonable price.”

EGYPT: Country Has Cement Surplus,No Need For Export Ban

Egypt has a surplus in its cement market and doesn't need to renew the ban on cement export, pan-Arab Asharq Al Awsat daily reports Saturday citing Rachid Mohamed Rachid, the country's minister of trade and industry.

The ministry hasn't issued a decision to renew the ban that lasted 15 months and that expired Thursday which means that it allows local companies to export clinker and cement again, the paper reports, adding that this follows export requests by local cement producers after three months of slump that followed a boom period stimulated by infrastructure works by the Egyptian government earlier this year.

The demand and supply mechanisms ensure that the local market's needs are met and the ministry doesn't have to interfere, Rachid said according to the daily.

The country's cement output currently stands at 47 million tons and is expected to hit 61 million tons by 2012 after new expansions enter production stage, Asharq Al Awsat reports.

EEUU: Lehigh Valley cement industry decries construction of Staten Island cement import terminal

A union representing Lehigh Valley cement workers objects to the use of $28 million in federal stimulus funds to help build a shipping terminal that it says will make it easier to import foreign cement.

The $51.7 million terminal in Staten Island, N.Y., is being built by Cementos Lima of Peru, according to Jonathan Wolfel, representing district council No. 1 of the Lehigh Valley United Steelworkers Union.

The union represents workers at local cement plants including Essroc in Nazareth and Keystone in East Allen Township. Teamsters Local 773 represents workers at Hercules in Stockertown.

Wolfel said Thursday it doesn't make sense for U.S. tax dollars to pay for a terminal that will undercut the cement industry in Eastern Pennsylvania.

He said Thursday that as a result of the terminal's construction, foreign cement will be used to rebuild ground zero, site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist airplane attack on the World Trade Center.

Terminal boosters say the terminal makes cement readily available to the building trades in the New York metropolitan area and eliminates heavy truck damage to local roads caused by cement haulers driving from the Lehigh Valley.

But that could cost local workers their jobs, according to Wolfel.

In a letter to another union official, Wolfel said Keystone Cement Co. recently completed a $200 million modernization and expansion of its Bath plant.

"If Keystone elected not to make this investment, the facility would have been permanently shut down and 170 (union) members would be out of work," Wolfel said. "Keystone made the investment believing that the stimulus package would result in rebuilding our roads and bridges."

Keystone officials did not return phone calls Friday.

Essroc's director of communications Marco Barbesta on Friday said of the terminal, "We're not happy about it. I don't think there is justification to bring cement in from Peru, especially with the economy in the state it is now. How many jobs will be destroyed?"

Barbesta said companies in the Lehigh Valley have been paying salaries for more than a century.

"In 1960 in the Lehigh Valley there were 13 cement companies operating 60 plants," Barbesta said. "Today there are only five companies left."

According to an article published Nov. 25, 2008, in the Staten Island Advance newspaper, New York politicians participated in the groundbreaking of the cement terminal, which would create 125 jobs.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer from New York said the terminal could inject as much as $60 million annually into that state's economy, according to the news report, which said up to 800,000 metric tons of cement could be delivered to the New York metropolitan area.

Schumer did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey also did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment on the terminal's potential impact on the Pennsylvania's cement industry.

The terminal is expected to be competed by the end of this year.

IRAQ: 2nd cement plant to be built in Muthanna

A private sector company is to build a cement factory, the second in southern Iraq's al Muthanna province, with a production capacity of one million tonnes and a total cost of USD 200 million.

Mr Ali Hannoun told Aswat al-Iraq news agency said that "We have completed all legal measures for contracting and handing over the land for the construction of a cement plant by al-Mabrouka private company, the second of its kind, over an area of 350 donums in al Fadwa village, 20 km southwest of Samawa.”

He added that "The new plant will be of a production capacity of one million tons and a cost of USD 200 millions.”

Mr Hannoun said the new plant shall witness the first steps of its construction by a Chinese company for the interest of its Iraqi Investor, Hatim al-Khawan, during the next few days, and will be completed within 30 months from now.

He added that "Both plants are expected to develop the cement industry in Muthanna and economic conditions in the province by allocating private and foreign capital to set up projects and help provide jobs for the unemployed in the province.”

LIBYA: Libya to set up cement plant in Syria

Tripoli, Libya - Libya and Syria agreed on Friday in Tripoli to set up a joint enterprise intended to fund the setting up of a cement plant in Syria and revitalize the role of joint ventures. The two countries also decided to propose designs for the launch of joint investment projects with high profitability between themselves and the African continent. The project was agreed in minutes of the coordinating and monitoring commission of the work of the Libyan-Syrian strategic cooperation council signed by the Libyan Secretary General for Planning and Finance, Abdelhafidh Zlitni and Syrian Minister of Finance, Mohamed El Hussein.

The two parties also agreed in the minutes to hold the first session of the Liby an-Syrian strategic cooperation council on 8-9 December in Syria, which will be preceded by a preparatory meeting in Libya.

Libya and Syria reviewed during this meeting the draft documents to be exchanged between both parties relating to the legal framework of the Coordinating Commission of the Council's work.

They stressed the importance of working to exchange remarks pertaining thereto through diplomatic channels and holding meetings, if need be, to refine the final version of these documents in a month after the holding of the follow-up meeting ahead of their signature at the first council session.

The minutes underscored the holding of the fourth meeting of the Libyan-Syrian Joint Technical Group in the field of mutual recognition of certificates of origin and quality during the second half of October in Libya to identify products to be exchanged according to agreed sectors.

The two parties also decided to enhance their cooperation in the fields of health, economics, trade, investment and communications to achieve complementarity between both countries.