Category Archives: Cement

World Cement Market

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Cement production in the world is dominated by China, whose production in 2011 accounted for 53.7% of all cement made globally. The third largest cement company in the world is China National Building Materials Company Limited often seen abbreviated as CNBM. Chinese companies also account for 7 additional companies on the 2011 list of the top 20 cement companies globally. The top two companies on that list are Lafarge (from France) and Holcim (from Switzerland).

Today’s market size is the total number of metric tons of cement produced worldwide in 2011, a number which represents a 9% increase on the 2010 figure.

Geographic reference: Worldwide
Year: 2011
Market size: 3.6 billion metric tons
Source: “Top 20 Global Cement Companies,” Global Cement Magazine, December 2012, page 14.
Original source: European Cement Association
Posted on December 13, 2012

Cement in the United States

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U.S. Apparent Consumption

The recession of 2007-2009 was deep and hit many sectors hard. The construction sector was one of the hardest hit and all the suppliers to it have been struggling to find enough stability to weather the downturn which has yet to turn around. But even knowing these facts, we were surprised by the stunningly severe downturns seen in the Spanish cement industry since 2007—as reported in the last post. It made us wonder how the U.S. cement industry has fared during the same period. The graph here charts U.S. cement consumption for a similar time period as the one in our last post on Spain.

The differences in these charts are very interesting and very telling. In the United States, the build up in consumption during the housing boom was strong but not nearly as sharp as the build up in Spain. The declines in both countries were sharp and abrupt as the housing bubble burst and the banking crisis began. However, in Spain, the post-2007 decline was sharper, more like a fall from a cliff and it has continued to fall sharply since whereas in the United States the decline leveled off in 2009 and 2010 and actually showed signs in 2011 of possibly beginning to recover, if only slightly.

Today’s market size post shows the overall value of cement sales—portland and masonry cement—in the United States in 2006 and 2011.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2006 and 2011
Market size: $12.6 billion and $6.6 billion respectively
Source: “Cement – Statistics and Information,” Mineral Industry Survey, a series of reports produced by the U.S. Geological Survey, made available online and last updated on May 25, 2011. Here is a link to the USGS site.
Original source: U.S. Department of the Interior
Posted on May 29, 2012

Cement in Spain

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Spanish Cement Consumption

We hear much these days about Europe and the economic struggles it is having. Watching from afar—or at least as far as one can be in our very intertwined, economically globalized world—we tend to see primarily the outlines of the big, macro picture. A quick glance at Spanish cement demand since 2007 reminds one of how the overall downturn is hitting some sectors with special ferocity.

While many industrialized nations experienced a construction boom during the 2001-2007 period, Spain’s was one of the larger. Consequently, its cement industry grew at a robust rate for a decade. Since peaking in 2007 it has shrunk dramatically and significant declines in early 2012, on a year-over-year basis, suggest that the shrinking is far from complete. In fact, rates of consumption when measured on a per capita basis have not been as low in Spain since 1966.

Today’s market size post shows the demand for cement in Spain in 2007 and 2011. The graph shows Spanish cement consumption over a two decade period.

Geographic reference: Spain
Year: 2007 and 2011
Market size: 56.0 and 20.2 million metric tons respectively
Source: “Holcim Spain to Cut 35% of Workforce,” Global Cement, May 23, 2012, available online here. and updates from the Monthly Retail Trade Reports from the same reporting series, U.S. Census Bureau, available online here. The graph was created from data provided by Oficemen, the Spanish Cement industry association, Agrupación de Fabricantes de Cemento de España, available online here.
Original source: Global Cement and Oficemen
Posted on May 25, 2012

Czech Cement

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Cement production in the Czech Republic has shown signs of a recovery in the first half of 2011. Today’s market size is the estimated total production of cement in Czechoslovakia in 2011.

Geographic reference: Czech Republic
Year: 2011
Market size: 3.3 million metric tons
Source: “Production Rise is Not the End of Czech Tunnel,” Global Cement Weekly, August 24, 2011, page 2, available online here.
Original source: Jan Hrozek, Chairman of the Ceskomoravsky Cement Company
Posted on August 25, 2011

Cement in China

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The rise of China as an economic powerhouse has been a significant development in this century so far. Building an economic powerhouse requires building and building requires building materials, one of the oldest of which is cement. China has invested heavily in its cement production capacity, nearly tripling its clinker production capacity between 2000 and 2010 according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Clinker is, in the most basic sense, a coarse form of cement which has yet to be ground down into the fine powdery substance that is cement, the glue that binds all the ingredients of concrete together.

Today’s market size is the size of cement production capacity in China in 2010.

Geographic reference: China
Year: 2010
Market size: 2.41 billion tons
Source: “Chinese Production Statistics for 2010,” Global Cement Weekly, July 6, 2011, page 1.
Original source: OneStone Research

Cement

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Cement Production Graph

A decade plus worth of production data on the cement industry shows a pattern with which we are familiar, the build-up and crash of the housing market. Most of the construction materials industries have seen similar patterns of growth and decline in the 2000s. Early data on 2010 show that sales of cement in that year reached a 27 year low, falling 45% (59 million metric tons) off the high reached in 2005.

The market size presented below is the number of metric tons of portland and masonry cement produced in the United States in 2010 and the approximate value of that cement if shipped from the mill the same year.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: 62.8 million metric tons with an approximate value of $5.7 billion
Source: “Cement,” part of an annual series titled Mineral Commodities Summaries, published by the U.S. Geographical Survey and available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of the Interior, USGS

Market for Cement in Brazil

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Many nations in Latin America have recovered far more quickly from the global downturn that began in 2008 than has the United States. As a basic building material, the demand for cement serves as an indicator of how the construction industry is faring from country to country. Brazil’s construction industry is doing quite well and is forecast to grow sharply over the next five years. The market sizes presented here are based on demand for cement. The figure for 2015 is a forecast by the source.

Geographic reference: Brazil
Year: 2010 and 2015
Market size: 58 million and 75 million metric tons respectively
Source: “News North and South America: Brazil Forecast to Experience Big Growth,” Global Cement Magazine, November 2010, page 41.

Cement Market in Thailand

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Asia has recovered far more quickly from the global downturn that began in 2008 than have the industrialized nations of Europe and the Americas. Complicating matters for the industrialized nations, and in particular the United States, is the nature of the bubble that burst to create the downturn. It was the housing market that was being bet on to inflate the bubble and when that crashed, the overbuilding which took place during the bubble growth period left the construction industry in serious trouble. But, that trouble is not seen everywhere in the world. As a basic building material, the demand for cement serves as an indicator of how the construction industry is faring nation by nation. Thailand has seen healthy growth in the demand for cement in 2010 despite the upheaval caused by flooding in that nation during the late summer.

Geographic reference: Thailand
Year: 2010
Market size: 24 million metric tons
Source: “News Asia: Siam Cement Group Profits Down Slightly,” Global Cement Magazine, November 2010, page 43.
Original source: Siam Cement Group