Clax­ton Bay-head­quar­tered Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) yes­ter­day de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of $85.90 mil­lion for the three months end­ed March 31, 2025, an in­crease of 9.6 per cent com­pared to the $78.3 mil­lion the ce­ment-pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny earned for the com­pa­ra­ble pe­ri­od in 2024.

In its con­sol­i­dat­ed unau­dit­ed in­ter­im fi­nan­cial re­port post­ed on the web­site of the T&T Stock Ex­change yes­ter­day, TCL re­port­ed rev­enue of $626.4 mil­lion for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1 to March 31, 2025. That was 9.2 per cent more than the com­pa­ny gen­er­at­ed for the first three months of 2025.

In a TCL di­rec­tors' state­ment, chair­man David In­gle­field and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Fran­cis­co Aguil­era Men­doza, said the growth in rev­enue was due to high­er sales vol­umes in Guyana, in­creased ex­port sales from T&T re­sult­ing from im­proved plant per­for­mance, and the ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of its pric­ing strat­e­gy in Ja­maica.

The com­pa­ny's di­rec­tors not­ed that its op­er­at­ing earn­ings be­fore oth­er ex­pens­es and oth­er in­come and cred­its were $145 mil­lion, al­so a nine per cent in­crease from Q1 2024.  

“Ja­maica con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent 90 per cent of TCL group’s earn­ings. On a com­par­a­tive ba­sis, the 9 per cent im­prove­ment was dri­ven by in­creased turnover and im­prove­ments in T&T, Bar­ba­dos, and Guyana,” they out­lined.

In ad­di­tion, In­gle­field said TCL's fi­nance costs fell by 34 per cent due to an over­all re­duc­tion of 264 ba­sis points (bps) in its USD re­volv­ing cred­it line and fi­nan­cial in­come rose with in­creased in­ter­est on US dol­lar de­posits.  

They said group tax­a­tion in­creased by $11 mil­lion due to im­proved prof­itabil­i­ty, and net in­come grew by $8 mil­lion, a 10 per cent in­crease over the first quar­ter of 2024.

The group gen­er­at­ed $148 mil­lion in net cash flows from op­er­a­tions and in­vest­ed $63 mil­lion in cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­tures. 

On TCL’s out­look, the di­rec­tors chair­man said de­spite the ce­ment com­pa­ny's strong per­for­mance and con­tin­ued growth, as shown in its first quar­ter 2025 re­sults, the board and man­age­ment re­main cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic and vig­i­lant, con­sid­er­ing on­go­ing glob­al eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ties and cur­rent po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ments.  

" We are stead­fast in man­ag­ing con­trol­lable vari­ables while prepar­ing to nav­i­gate un­cer­tain­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trade tar­iffs, which we are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing.

"We have proac­tive­ly pre­pared for po­ten­tial in­fla­tion es­ca­la­tions af­fect­ing our in­put costs," ac­cord­ing to the di­rec­tors.

In T&T, the TCL di­rec­tors main­tained that fair com­pe­ti­tion is ad­van­ta­geous, and it would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the mar­ket’s re­sponse to the re­duc­tion in im­port tar­iffs.

That com­ment re­ferred to the de­ci­sion by the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, an­nounced on April 4, that the Gov­ern­ment has agreed to re­duce the rate of du­ty on oth­er hy­draulic ce­ments to 5 per cent.

The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try (MTI) wish­es to an­nounce that the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go has agreed to re­duce the rate of du­ty on Oth­er Hy­draulic Ce­ments of HS2523.90.00 to 0 per cent.

"This de­ci­sion was made fur­ther to the MTI’s mon­i­tor­ing of mar­ket con­di­tions in the ce­ment in­dus­try and the re­cent ac­tion by TCL to raise the price of ce­ment by 7 per cent. This price ad­just­ment was the fifth in­crease im­ple­ment­ed by TCL since 2021," the min­istry said.  

In­gle­field said its sus­tain­able lo­cal pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty en­ables the com­pa­ny to ex­port com­pet­i­tive­ly and gen­er­ate much-need­ed for­eign ex­change for T&T. 

He added that in Ja­maica, TCL an­tic­i­pates com­plet­ing the kiln de­bot­tle­neck project dur­ing the sec­ond quar­ter, re­duc­ing the need for ce­ment im­ports and pro­vid­ing a sur­plus for ex­port to neigh­bour­ing mar­kets.