Sweden

Geography
way

449,964km2
Stockholm

Economy

gat

tte

210kg

As the Swedish construction industry continues its recovery, the local

cement industry supplies increasing amounts to its domestic market.
The US provides an export market with good returns although the
predicted decline in the Florida market may see Cementa exporting
to other countries.

he growth rate of the Swedish

GDP declined from 3.7 per cent
in 2004 to 2.7 per cent the year
after. For 2006, a faster growth rate of
four per cent is forecast, reducing to 2.7
per cent in 2007. Ination is under control, with 1.6 per cent being forecast for
2006 and 1.8 per cent in 2007.
Growth in construction activity in
2005 was very much led by the buoyant housebuilding activity and civil
engineering was in decline as far as
new orders were concerned. 2005 saw
housebuilding activity grow by 9.4 per
cent and housing starts reached 31,600
units, compared with just 20,930 two
years earlier. The number of completions amounted to 29,500 and these are
forecast to rise to around 31,500 in 2006
as starts move ahead to some 34,000
units. Commercial and industrial building activity rose by 1.9 per cent in 2005,
but are forecast to grow by 6.6 per cent
in 2006. In civil engineering, a decline of
6.3 per cent in new orders was recorded
in 2005, but this should be made up for

330

THE GLOBAL CEMENT REPORT

during 2006, when and advance of 6.8

per cent is being forecast and work on
existing contracts kept cement deliveries to major civil engineering contracts
moving ahead.

Consumption
Sweden still has a fairly a low per capita cement consumption in spite of the
recovery in demand in recent years, but
then the capita consumption 10 years
ago had fallen as low as 148kg, at a time
when all segments of the construction
industry were in deep recession, at least
as far as new work was concerned.
Bulk cement accounts for approximately 95 per cent of the Swedish cement consumption, with the rest being
distributed in 25kg bags.

Production
Through its subsidiary Cementa A/B,
HeidelbergCement is the sole cement
producer in Sweden with a total cement
production capacity of around 3Mta.
Cementa has three integrated cement

Se

US$41,060
krona (SEK)

Stockholm

Ka

GNI per capita

Currency
Per capita cement
consumption

ia
fB
oth
n
Gu

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9.1m
20 inhab./km2
84%
Swedish

ltic

Population
Density
Urbanisation
Ofcial language

N or

Demography

Ba

Area
Capital

plants, located at Slite, Skvde and

Degerhamn. The Slite and Degerhamn
works are both on islands in the Baltic
Sea, while the Skvde works is inland
in the west of the country.
The Slite works on Gotland is, by
far, Cementas largest plant and has
an annual cement producing capacity
of just over 2Mt. It accounts for some
three-quarters of the companys output
and for all exports, other than of special cements. A new cooler has recently
been installed at Slite and the usage of
alternative fuels has been increased.
The Swedish and other European markets are supplied by ship from Slite and
Cementa operates a eet of three, selfdischarging, coastal bulk cement tankers to serve its marine terminals. For
overseas exports, transhipment into
larger vessels has to take place offshore
because of limits to the size of vessels that can be accommodated at the
plants own harbour.
The Skvde works has an annual
cement capacity of 0.6Mt. In 2005, the
company installed a new lter, which
has enabled the use of alternative fuels to be considerably increased. The
plant at Skvde is the companys swing
producer, supplying primarily local
markets, and then further aeld to the
extent the level of demand requires it.
This allows maximum production at