Costlier home loans, inputs to hit cement prices

06 May 2011 Evaluate

Cement prices, which have moved up in the last quarter, may soften in the coming months due to reduced off take as an upshot of the onset of monsoons, when construction activities slow down, and the spike in housing loan rates that is round the corner. However, ballooning costs of raw materials, which constitute about 70-75 per cent of the cost of cement production, will continue to put a squeeze on margins of cement manufacturers.

During the January to March 2011 quarter, a sharp increase in coal prices and railway freight charges had nudged cement prices up by 8-12 per cent from the December 2010 levels. Prices of coal, which constitute 20 per cent of the raw material costs, saw a steep increase in March — in a multi-layered price increase, Coal India Ltd had hiked coal prices for the deregulated sector by 40 per cent, while Mahanadi Coalfields had made any upward revision of about 55 per cent. Apart from coal, cement makers had to fork out an additional Rs 8 per tonne for coal transportation through the Indian Railways from December last year.

© 2025 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×