Cement demand seen outstripping supply

Despite a new player in the field, Holcim Philippines sees growth in demand for cement continuing to outpace supply amid government plans to increase infrastructure spending coupled with increasing investments in construction by the private sector.

“When we look at the role of supply and demand in the country, we certainly at the moment believe that there will be a greater demand than supply,” said Holcim Philippines chief operating officer Sapna Sood in an interview.

She added “that is why we're seeing right now not just ourselves but also the industry starting to invest. A cement plant normally takes three years to put in. So that commitment needs to be made.”

Sood explained that “there will definitely be demand not just for us, but also for the industry that is looking at investing so that supply can keep up. We have invested in increasing our capacity and we continuously review it.”

However, Sood said Holcim is not yet planning to build a new cement plant since they have just invested in debottlenecking its existing plants to squeeze out more capacity.

“We've invested in our capacity already and we're currently reviewing. We certainly had a project where we were looking at all of that safety, debottlenecking. That is near completion. To be completed at the end of this quarter,” she explained.

Once completed, Holcim will have an annual capacity of 10 million metric tons with the 2 million ton capacity added from recent projects undertaken by the company.

Sood said the company is looking forward to the growth in demand for cement. “When we look at the country and the infrastructure that is coming in and the commitment that they are making in infrastructure, it is pretty exciting for the country and the industry in terms of how we participate.”

Aside from increasing capacity, Sood said Holcim is also looking at providing specialty mixes and building solutions for the government’s infrastructure needs.

“We have a lot in terms of road solutions, in terms of what we can do around ports. It’s actually being more than a cement supplier – for us, it's really about transforming…for the industry to really look for solutions to help the administration's infrastructure,” she said.

Sood cited as an example when the company was called on the by the government to provide a quick solution to road repairs in order to minimize its impact on traffic.

“One of the things we have done successfully twice is that we have a product solution called SSQuick, which is the fast-setting concrete and in 2016 we were asked to come into EDSA and actually do some maintenance within a span of 24 hours on a particular patch of road,” she said.

She added that, “we came in, we did the work and within 24 hours the road was passable again. Normally it would take 3 to seven days to do this. And we've done this again. We've been certified by the DPWH so it's a solution that's available to be scaled up.”