Hello dear readers – welcome to 2023 and the January issue of World Cement!
The holiday season is over and the days are getting longer (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere anyway); it’s time to clear out what remains of the festive fare (or turn it into soup, freeze it, and forget about it) and make good on those New Year’s Resolutions that you were foolish enough to announce in front of other people.
In addition to those hastily made resolutions, this time of year is routinely accompanied by predictions and forecasts for the months ahead. Nostradamus, for example, is regularly quoted at this time of year for his predictions of momentous events: plagues, wars, the rise of tyrants, natural disasters, and so on. Call me cynical if you must, but I feel that I could also come up with prophecies such as “the lights of Mars will go out” or “Honey shall cost far more than candle-wax” if I knew I was going to be dead hundreds of years before anyone could fact-check me or ask for a bit more detail. Annoyingly, he is actually correct about the honey/candle-wax pricing situation, unless we’re talking about beeswax candles, but I digress…
Happily, we don’t have to rely on Nostradamus and his thoughts on apiary-related byproducts to get some idea of what the year ahead might have in store for us. Less happily, the economic forecast for 2023 is mixed at best. Nikolaj Schmidt, Chief International Economist at T. Rowe Price was quoted by The Guardian as saying: “We see the world plunging into a global recession in 2023. The recession is going to be the result of the immense monetary tightening the central banks have administered over the past 12 months. As a silver lining, it will sow the seeds for a substantial retracement of inflation.” J.P. Morgan does little to raise the mood with the introduction for its 2023 Economic outlook: “The 2023 economic outlook for the United States is being defined by decelerating growth, rapid monetary tightening and moderating inflation.”
And whilst wholesale gas prices in Europe have fallen to levels last seen in October 2021 (a result of measures to reduce consumption and diversify supply along with a relatively mild winter), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the associated risks of escalation and further disruption continue.
Focusing specifically on cement, if you turn to pg 10 of this issue, you’ll find an executive summary of IA Cement’s Report for the year ahead. Whilst there are some positive notes – India and the Middle East, for example, are both expected to see continued growth – cement demand is generally expected to plateau or decline as inflation and high interest rates eat away at both public and private finances.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. A few bright spots on the horizon include World Cement’s upcoming virtual conferences: EnviroTech (22 March) and Optimisation (14 June). Once again, these flagship events will be packed with high quality technical presentations and live Q&A sessions with industry experts from around the world. Stay tuned for more details.
And in the meantime, the team at World Cement wish you all a very Happy New Year!
