Cement sales fell again last January in Lanzarote, leaving the lowest figure since December 2019. In total, 4,027 tons were sold, with a decrease of 15% compared to the previous month and 21% compared to January 2021, according to figures from the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics collected by the Lanzarote Council Data Center.
During the first year of the pandemic, cement consumption on the island skyrocketed, driven by public and private works, until it reached its highest peak in March 2021, with 8,590 tons sold. However, since that date the figure began to fall, especially in the last months of the past year, and this trend has increased at the beginning of 2022.
The figure for last January, compared to the same month of previous years, is the lowest since 2018, when 4,012 tons were sold. In January 2019 there were 6,366, in January 2020 4,959 were sold and in January 2021 a total of 5,129.
Trend change
Regarding the year-on-year variation, before the pandemic there was already an upward trend, going from 49,738 tons in 2018 to 62,365 in 2019. The following year that figure skyrocketed, especially two months after the pandemic broke out, and an annual sale of 75,284 tons was reached.
Afterwards, in 2021 it fell but slightly, to 72,061 tons, since the first months of the year compensated for the fall of the rest. Now, the start of this year seems to confirm this downward trend in Lanzarote, which does not coincide with what is happening in the rest of the archipelago.
In the Canary Islands, 42,610 tons were sold in January, with an increase of 5% compared to the same month of the previous year; and 2021 ended in the archipelago with an increase of 6% compared to 2020.
