DTI allows cement firms to export clinker

With the cement industry now struggling to survive, government said it is allowing local cement companies to export clinker as an alternative way to utilize their cement export allocations.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that since domestic cement supply is stable and there is a glut in the market as a result of the slowdown in construction, it has approved requests for authority to export both cement and clinker.

Documents from the DTI reveal that Alsons Cement Corp. (Alsons) has been allowed to export 50,000 metric tons of clinker using the export authority that was issued to it last year.

Alsons was originally authorized to export 705,000 metric tons of cement in December 1999, equivalent to 17.6 million bags of cement. To date, the DTI said the company has exported a total of 351,845 metric tons of Portland cement, leaving a balance of 353,155 metric tons.

Because of the low demand for cement in the local market, DTI said Alsons has decided to expand its market by exporting cement clinker and the company has already accepted an order of 50,000 metric tons for shipment this month.

Cement clinker is produced from mined rock, ground and crushed to a fine grade before being calculated at high temperature in a rotary kiln that converts it to clinker. Subsequent processing turns this into cement.

Although the previous export allocations did not expressly allow the exportation of clinker, the DTI said it is not objecting to the use of the allocation to export clinker instead of cement.

DTI said it is allowing the export of clinker provided that the cement equivalent of the volume will still be deductible from the balance of the volume available under the previous authority issued.

DTI said this should be no problem since clinker requires minimal further processing to produce the final product. Cement is about 95 to 96 percent clinker.

DTI records show that Alsons export cement mainly to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan although it did not say where the company is exporting clinker to.

Aside from Alsons, several other cement companies have been resorting to cement exportation in search of alternative markets for their excess production. Apo Cement Corp. has also been exporting and as of July 2000, the company has so far exported 101,534 metric tons to Palau, Cambodia and other Asian countries out of its authority to export a total of 130,400 metric tons.

Davao Union Cement Corp. was also allowed to export a total of one million metric tons of cement to Palau but DTI’s records as of October 2000 showed that the company has so far not utilized its authority to export.

DTI records also show that in the past, only two other companies have been allowed to export clinker, namely Grand Cement Manufacturing Corp. which shipped out 100,000 metric tons in 1993 and Bacnotan Cement Corp. which shipped out 40,000 metric tons in 1998. – Des Ferriols