French cement production up 8.4% in 2011, says SFIC

The president of French cement industry union SFIC said he expected a 7% drop in national demand for cement in 2012. Rachid Benyakhlef said the reduced demand would contrast the 8.6% cement demand increase in 2011. He added that cement production was expected to be under 20million tonnes in 2012. Despite the forecasted decline in demand for cement, Holcim is opening a new grinding unit in La Pallice, and Kercim is opening a new grinding unit in Saint-Nazaire.

According to the French union of the cement industry, Syndicat français de l'industrie cimentière (SFIC), the sector remains prudent for the future.

Sales in 2015 fell 5.3% year-on-year to 17.2 million tonnes, as low as 1964.

The market suffered the flatness of the new construction market, a continual drop in non-residential construction and an absence of investment in public works.

Consumption has fallen by around 1 million tonnes/year since 2007, reports Raoul de Parisot, president of SFIC.

French building materials firm Ciments Français (CF) says it will target industrial investments in India and Bulgaria in 2011 after seeing its net consolidated profit fall by 13.7% to €274.2million in 2011.

Greek firm Titan Cement saw a 19% drop in its revenues in 2011 to €1.09bn.