Friday, May 06,
The 45% rise in coal costs in the past six months has squeezed margins for Cement makers.*
Prices of coal and petroleum coke, a by-product of oil refining, are forecasted to remain above $100/MT for the next few years and cement makers are reluctantly starting to accept high fuel costs, which are here to stay.
International cement makers such as Lafarge and Holcim are exposed to coal price moves because they have coal-consuming plants all over the world.
“Producers with a large number of Indian plants or plants in China are more exposed to coal because the main fuel is coal rather than petcoke,” said one of the biggest cement makers.
“Reluctantly, we have had to accept that there is no reason we can see for coal and petcoke prices to fall from current levels,” he added.
Source: Reuters
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