Cement maker seen setting record profit

Cement-maker Eagle Cement sees its net profit hitting a new high of P6.5 billion next year from at least P4.3 billion in estimated net this year on the back of sustained growth in sales volume.

“I think [that] for 2017, our revenue will grow by at least 20 percent to about P15 billion, with gross profit of more than P7 billion,” Eagle Cement chair Ramon S. Ang said in a briefing after the company’s first stockholders meeting as a publicly listed company yesterday.

This year, Ang said Eagle’s gross profit would likely reach P7 billion, translating to a net income of P4.3 billion to P4.5 billion.

For 2018, he said revenue could reach P23 billion, supporting a gross profit of P10 billion and a net of P6.5 billion.

Ang said Eagle’s production next year should hit 130 million bags, up by about 35 percent from the 2017 volume.

Eagle Cement’s outlook assumes that the tough competition posed by imported cement will continue and further drive down cement prices. At present, he said prices had already gone down by 25 percent from year-ago level.

He said some cement importers were undervaluing their products.

He said the right price for imported cement was $50 per ton, but total cost should be $60 per ton including freight costs.

Eagle Cement president Paul Ang said the financial projections for next year assumed that cement sales volume would grow by 5 percent. Demand for infrastructure-building is seen to further grow next year.

Meanwhile, Eagle Cement has fleshed out its plan to boost production capacity to 9.1 million metric tons per year with the recent ground-breaking of its fourth cement production line in Malabuyoc, Cebu. The company’s first three production lines are in Bulacan.

Line 4 is seen to be completed in 2020 and will include a 2-million integrated cement manufacturing plant, port facilities and cement terminals to serve the Visayas and Mindanao markets.