Osman Nemli
Bursa Cimento General Manager
The pandemic continues to threaten our lives in many areas. How do you, your environment and colleagues go through this process?
As a company, we determined our priority as the issue of health during the pandemic. Setting all our other jobs aside, we focused primarily on our employees. Our goal is to protect the well-being of our employees and to take all necessary measures accordingly. We carry out studies that prioritize our health at the expense of haltering production at the point where necessary. So far, there emerged no bad experience in this sense in our immediate environment and factory. We believe that we have taken all necessary measures to ensure that we will not have any bad experience afterwards.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, there emerge many developments affecting almost every area, especially in the economy. How do you evaluate this process both in terms of Bursa Cimento and in terms of the sector in general?
Life all over the world came to a standstill due to the pandemic. We faced many different obligations and sanctions, such as curfews and travel bans. We, as a company, were caught in the middle of a major revision process. We welcome a large number of contractors from outside during revision periods in cement factories; they stay in different locations and perform different work. We have had a hard time managing all these processes due to the travel bans and curfews. However, we have overcome all this and we are moving on. From a general point of view, cement and construction never reset, although there were times when volume had dramatic decreases during the pandemic. Even if we continued with half or quarter capacity from time to time, we always kept our factory open and continued production. This, in turn, has been a source of morale and motivation for us.
The first economic problems in the cement sector began with the exchange rate fluctuation in August 2018. Beginning in February, the pandemic has deepened the economic problems. Long-term housing loans and low loans issued during this period served as leverage for the sector. As of today, a very large volume of the real estates in Turkey has been sold. In addition, new constructions, which had been licensed but could not be started, began to be carried out gradually. A serious mobility began in the field of exports with the work done in the domestic market. Currently, there is a significant mobility and activity in terms of exports in the entire sector. There is a recovery; however, we have not reached the profitability level of the last period.
The export figures are steadily increasing on the sectoral basis. What do you think are the steps to take to further increase our strength and brand value in this area?
Currently, we have domestic companies that have reached a certain capacity on a global scale, performing important work in international trade. These firms now have capabilities that can compete with their competitors on a global scale. However, we, as a sector, are not able to use our name well enough due to the competition within ourselves, and we are experiencing price loss. By developing slightly different yanınstrategies in this sense, I think we can protect ourselves without reducing the prices too much. Then, there will be a great increase in both our and the country’s earnings. In this direction; more comprehensive, international export-oriented, joint venture groups can be established to represent the cement sector. This will be beneficial for everyone. The fact that prices are so low also leaves us facing anti-dumping investigations. I think this issue is also very important in terms of continuity of brands. There must be stabilization and continuity in this direction. On one hand, we want to exist in markets all over the world, generate good incomes here and make money for our country. These are not easy to do. Because there are huge balances in the middle, both in the domestic market and in the international arena. It is quite difficult to keep all these balances together where there is such a competitive environment.
Do you have any new investment plans as a company?
As Bursa Cimento, we have very different plans both on a large and small scale. Yet, the current economic situation and conjuncture are also important here. Clearly, the only way to exist in this competitive market now is to reduce costs. We would like to make all kinds of investments that can reduce costs. However, at this point, both national and global economic situations affect decisionmaking processes. Nevertheless, despite all, our various investments that reduce costs will definitely continue.
Do you think it is possible for cement and clinker prices to increase in the coming years? What circumstances do you attribute such a situation to?
In the last 5 years, expenditures have increased a lot, but not reflected in prices. I do not believe the sector can take it for a long time, so prices will increase. The sector has experienced very good periods in the past. But the sector needs time to reach these levels again. Conditions can vary by region in competitive environments. We continue to exist with the prices created by this competitive environment. However, I can clearly say that exports are supportive of us in this sense.
What are the indicators of cement consumption pointing to in terms of the sector in economic terms?
After the pandemic adaptation process, we expected growth, but we were also afraid to say something clear. There was a very rapid and good increase. But we don’t know if that increase will continue tomorrow. When we look at our daily and weekly tonnage, we are on a lower level than our last figures for periods when the economy was relatively better. Although there has been an increase, we are seriously behind those numbers. Therefore, there is a restriction in that sense, and there remain concerns about what that restriction will be like tomorrow, whether construction will continue, whether new constructions will start. It seems that there will be no restrictions as harsh as in the past, but how will they be reflected in the economy, will factories be able to work, will functioning factories be able to export enough, will they be eager to invest again? In this sense, we are experiencing an unclear process from a sectoral point of view. The sector named construction is closely related to investment in industry, people buying new homes, population growth, and increased infrastructure investment on the public side. The public has not been slowing down at this time in terms of infrastructure; it continues to make its investments. Investments such as high-speed trains and dams continue. In this sense, we see a slightly positive future, but these projects will take several years. Therefore, the economy needs to reach a certain level and now start spinning in its normal routine.
As Bursa Cimento, can you give some information about your future related goals? What kind of process do you anticipate as a company?
The way to exist in a competitive environment is through costs. We are also conducting very clear studies about costs. We are carrying out activities on the transition to paperless offices with digitalization. We focused on R&D studies. In this process, we need to introduce products such as cement, machinery and equipment with high added value. We are conducting related studies. We conducted a mill experiment where we achieved successful results together with a German company. We conducted these tests not only in the laboratory, but also on the industrial side, and we continue to use them now. In addition, we are making periodical presentations at the Cement Manufacturers’ Association Technical Seminar. We will try to carry Bursa Cement to the modern world of the future in some way.
Digitalization was already a topic on the agenda before that. Did the pandemic further accelerate this process?
I am actually from automation side, and my professionalism stems from automation. Cement factories have long had a very serious investment in digital infrastructure. They are ready in that sense. Currently, we receive online services for many devices remotely. We can connect remotely to the services of automation systems, such as an important package system like cooling. Companies can make direct changes with this system and if they want, they can give us directions such as failures, and maintenance. Besides these developments, the lack of cement factories at this point is that they do not sum up all of these works within one system. Now, gradually, they will all begin to be processed, reaching a point, and their impact on each other will also begin to be examined. We usually did it piece by piece. Scale automation systems, door automation systems, etc. in fact, are the investments aimed entirely at digitalization. This is what we are recently planning to do.
You are the first company in Turkey to receive TSE Covid-19 Safe Production Certificate. What would you like to say about that?
We were all on alert because we were caught up in the pandemic in revision process. We had meetings every day with all our employees in the health department and occupational safety about how we were going to manage this situation and what we were going to do. When the Minister of Industry announced that they would provide this document at a meeting, we made our application. On day one, we received the document at the same time as a company that is a friend of ours from our industry. It was one of the applications that we enjoyed very much. One of the things we are most proud of is that there have never been a pandemic case in our factory. We hope we will not have any. Because it is spreading so fast. We are putting a lot of effort into protecting ourselves. We have completely changed our cafeteria layout, removed the mutual seating at certain intervals, our services are still running at half capacity. Although the state repealed the restriction in this sense, we are still applying it. We are sustaining our service restrictions. We often perform inspections in the field, in the offices. We are doing our best. I can tell you that this is one of the documents of my professional life that I am very proud of.