OMAN: Oman Cement Q3 Net Profit Drops 39.5%

Oman Cement reported a third-quarter net profit that dropped 39.5 per cent from the same period last year, according to Reuters calculations, missing the average forecast of analysts.

One of the sultanate’s largest cement producers made a net profit after tax of OMR2.3 million ($6.0 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with OMR3.8 million in the corresponding period of 2013, Reuters calculated based on financial statements.

Three analysts polled by Reuters had expected the firm on average to make a net profit of OMR4.06 million.

Oman Cement made a net profit of OMR11.4 million in the first nine months of 2014, down from OMR12.4 million in the same period last year, it said in a bourse statement on Tuesday.

GHANA: We slashed cement price to fulfill promise to Ghanaians

Strategy and Corporate Affairs Director of Ghacem, Dr. George Dawson-Ahmoah, has explained that the company reduced cement prices in fulfillment of its pledge to act positively when the cedi gains strength against major international currencies.

He explained that Ghacem fulfilled the pledge to Ghanaians because the cement producer was a good corporate citizen

Dr. Dawson-Ahmoah noted the recent appreciation of the cedi has resulted in a marginal reduction of the company’s production cost.

Dr. Dawson-Ahmoah announced the company’s ex-factory price of cement has been reduced from Gh¢30.55 to Gh¢27.965, stressing the company will not hesitate to further reduce the price should the cedis' appreciation hold.

He commended government for working to salvage the free fall of the cedi and urged managers of the economy to do more to safeguard the welfare of Ghanaians.

Ghacem he said imports about 80 percent of its raw materials for production of cement hence the recent depreciation of the Cedi really affected production cost and the company had no option than to increase prices.

Dr. Dawson-Ahmoah, who doubles as the Chairman of the made in Ghana Campaign of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) stressed that Ghacem will continuously patronize the use of local limestone for the production of cement and will continuously search for the availability of local limestone concession in order to add value to local production.

ZAMBIA: Dangote Cement sues Zambian minister over corruption allegations

Dangote Cement’s Zambian subsidiary has sued the country’s labour minister for libel and slander after he accused an executive of the Nigerian company of attempting to bribe him.

A row has been brewing between Zambia and Dangote Cement, a major employer in Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the government minister made the allegations in September.

Dangote said in papers filed in court that the minister had created an impression that the company was exploiting Zambian workers and enticing government officials with bribes.

"The plaintiff has been brought into public scandal and its reputation has been injured," Dangote said in a writ of summons dated October 10.

The dispute appears to be the latest in a string of incidents in which the southern African nation’s government has resorted to strong-arm or unorthodox tactics against foreign investors it believes are circumventing labour laws.

Dangote Industries Zambia has 400 workers building a $400m cement plant, a staff count that should rise to 2,000 when production starts in November.

During a tour of the plant in Ndola, 300km north of the capital Lusaka, Labour Minister Fackson Shamenda said a Nigerian executive seconded to the Zambian unit tried to bribe him at a hotel.

The company described the allegations as "malicious misinformation" and denied the corruption and bribery claims.

A year ago, Zambia revoked the work permit of the CE of Konkola Copper Mines, owned by London-listed Vedanta Resources, and threatened to rip up its mining licence when the firm announced plans to lay off 1,500 workers.

RUSSIA: Arkhangelsk cement producer survives layoffs

The destiny of the only on the White Sea coast cement plant is of public concern in the settlement Savinskiy (Arkhangelsk Region).

Savinskiy Cement Plant is the largest cement producer in northern Russia. The plant was built in 1966 to supply the region with best quality cement used for monolithic and precast concrete manufacturing in residential and industrial construction business. Now it is on the verge of closing. The main production was stopped in early September. Of more than 500 workers, half have been dismissed, and those left are transferred to a shorter working day.

The company's management explain their actions by the need for a general reconstruction, but local residents fear that the plant will be simply disassembled and junked. They sent an open letter to the federal and regional authorities, in which they expressed their concern about the fate of Savinskiy Cement Plant. The appeal to President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Minister of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov, Governor Igor Orlov, Speaker of the Regional Assembly Victor Novozhilov, as well as the heads of district administration and the municipality Savinskiy, reads partly as follows.

"The residents ask for your help in resolving this situation: to prevent the elimination of the only cement plant in the Arkhangelsk region, to save the municipality Savinskiy and ensure the livelihoods of its people. Savinskiy is the place of residence for about 10,000 people. In the settlement there are two kindergartens for 500 children, a comprehensive school for 845 children, a correctional school of regional importance, a professional school for 134 people, the hospital of district significance, the house of temporary stay for 40 elderly persons, and other objects of social and cultural needs.

We, the residents of the settlement Savinskiy, are well aware that the closing of the plant will lead to problems of life support for the settlement and its very existence. At a meeting with civil society organizations of Savinskiy, the factory management did not inform the public about the future of the plant: whether it would be the upgrading or the liquidation. […] Judging from the current situation, the plant is being prepared not to modernization, but to elimination, which will result in massive unemployment, impoverishment of the population, and an increase in crime."

Ernest Belokorovin, the Chairman of the Arkhangelsk Oblast Deputy Council's Committee on the Industrial Policy, Transport, Communications and Environment, says. "I believe it is necessary as soon as possible to begin negotiations between the regional authorities and the owner of the plant. Now the company dismantles the equipment ant takes it somewhere, carries out the staff reduction — all this is very disturbing and may lead to losing another enterprise important for the region, and, accordingly, to the reduction in jobs and tax revenues to the budget."

The local administration reports no acute social tensions over the workforce layoffs in the settlement. So far.

NORWAY: Norwegian Factory Aims to Solve Cement’s Carbon Problem

A Norwegian cement factory has shown that it’s able to capture much of its own carbon dioxide. If the approach were to become widespread, it could have a significant impact, since cement production is responsible for more than 5 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The Norcem Brevik cement works, tucked into a scenic harbor south of Oslo, has used waste heat to drive a process called amine scrubbing that, at test scales, removed between 30 and 40 percent of the total emissions from the plant’s flue gases.

“We think we are the first project that is testing technology in real cement-plant conditions,” said Liv-Margrethe Bjerge, project manager for the test at Norcem, which owns the Brevik plant. “It’s the only cement project doing post-combustion capture.”

Bjerge spoke in Austin, Texas, at the largest international conference on carbon capture and sequestration technologies.

The plant expects to begin full-scale operation with carbon capture next summer. It could serve as a model for many plants in Europe and around the world, she said. The company is demonstrating only carbon capture right now. Ultimately the carbon dioxide would probably get shipped to an offshore well for injection, which is the method available in Norway.

The plant is testing a few different technologies. In the one that’s yielded results so far, chemicals called amines pick up carbon dioxide and then release it when heated. Results are still pending for two other methods, Bjerge said. In one, calcium oxide combines with carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate. The other uses membranes to capture the carbon dioxide.

While these carbon-capture processes have previously been tested in power plants, cement plants differ because their emissions include much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, plus more dust and other contaminants.

Some more far-out ideas for capturing carbon from cement making include using concentrated sunlight to drive the production process (see “New Cement-Making Method Could Slash Carbon Emissions”). And some groups are working on adding materials to concrete that can later absorb carbon dioxide (see “TR10: Green Concrete”). In the United States, a startup called Skyonic is running a pilot plant at a cement mill to reuse carbon dioxide in sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda.