Displaying items by tag: Government
Canada: Jean Boulet, the labour minister of Quebec, has called for an end to a long-running labour dispute at Ash Grove’s Joliette cement plant that has been running since mid-2021. Around 130 members of the Unifor union were locked out by management, according to Postmedia Breaking News. In a message on social media Boulet invited the parties to "concentrate their efforts at the negotiation table with a conciliator." The union alleges that company owner CRH has been importing raw materials to make cement from Greece or Turkey whilst the workers have been excluded from the plant. Negotiations will continue in mid-April 2022.
Ghana: The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has reported discoveries of Empire Cement brand cement on sale on the open market despite neither it nor the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having issued permits for Empire Cement to produce cement. Graphic Online News has reported that the suspect products are wrongly labelled with certification marks. GSA director general Alex Dodoo warned that this constitutes an offence.
Calcined clay projects in Africa
06 April 2022African cement producers have confirmed their interest in calcined clay over the last month with two new projects. The big one was announced last week when FLSmidth revealed that it had received an order from CBI Ghana. This follows the launch of a Limestone Calcined Clay (LC3) project in Malawi in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi.
FLSmidth says that its order includes the world’s largest gas suspension calciner system and a complete grinding station. The kit will be installed at CBI Ghana’s plant near Accra in the south of the country. The new clay calciner system is expected to substitute 30 - 40% of the clinker in the final product, resulting in a reduction of up to 40% CO2/t of blended cement compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). Overall the equipment manufacturers reckon that the grinding plant will reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% compared to its current output. There has been no indication of how much the order costs but CBI Ghana expects energy and fuel savings, as well as lower overheads from clinker imports.
The public announcement of the Ghana project was also foreshadowed by the visit of Professor Karen Scrivener to the Ghana Standards Authority in February 2022. This was significant because Scrivener is the head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and has been one of the key instigators of the LC3 initiative since the early 2000s. Other calcined clay cements are available such as Futurecem or polysius activated clay (see below) but LC3 is arguably the most famous given its promotion in developing countries.
The Malawi project is at a much earlier stage. The government launched the public private partnership LC3 project in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi and Terrastone, a brick manufacturer. The Ministry of Mining is currently developing a memorandum of understanding with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a Germany-based development agency. India-based Tara Engineering has also been linked to the scheme.
One thing to note about the Malawi project is that it is the first calcined clay project in the cement industry based in East Africa. All the other African ones are based in West Africa. The other two projects in this region are run by Turkey-based Oyak Çimento and its subsidiary Cimpor. The first of these is a 0.3Mt/yr calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement grinding production line that was commissioned in mid-2020. This plant is based at Abidjan in Ivory Coast. The second is a new plant that Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions is building for Oyak Çimento at Kribi in Cameroon. This unit has a 720t/day calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement production capacity and it will use the supplier’s ‘polysius activated clay’ technology. ThyssenKrupp’s involvement came to light in early 2020 and commissioning was scheduled for late 2021. However, no update on the state of the project has been issued so far in 2022.
As the above examples show, Sub-Saharan Africa has at least one live calcined clay plant, two plants are being built and there’s one more at the development stage. This puts the region neck-and-neck with Europe, which has a similar mixture of current and developing projects. This column has been covering the wider trend of the growing usage of various types of blended cements recently, particularly in Europe and the US, with slag cements, Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) and more. With PLC, for example, note the transition of another two North American cement plants to PLC this week alone. As for calcined clay cement, it is fascinating to see the focus move to a different part of the world. Several commentators have predicted that the future looks set to be dominated by blended cements using whichever supplementary cementitious material (SCM) is most available for each plant. The growth in calcined clay confirms this view.
Global Cement is researching clay calcination use in the cement industry for the next edition of the Global Cement Directory. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any information on new industrial and research installations.
HeidelbergCement, Felleskjøpet AGRI and Egil Ulvan Rederi to build the world's first zero-emission bulk carrier
06 April 2022Norway: HeidelbergCement, agricultural cooperative Felleskjøpet AGRI and shipping company Egil Ulvan Rederi plan to build what they say will be the world's first zero-emission bulk carrier. The project has also received support of around Euro12m from the Norwegian government-owned sustainability company Enova. The vessel is scheduled for completion and commissioning in 2024. Once operational the ship will be used to transport aggregates products for HeidelbergCement and grain for Felleskjøpet between west Norway and east Norway using hydrogen powered transport.
Egil Ulvan Rederi was selected following a tendering process in 2021. The ship is intended to be highly energy efficient, using rotor sails and has a streamlined design to reduce energy consumption. It will be powered by hydrogen from Norwegian energy supplier Statkraft but will also have small auxiliary batteries and a fuel cell on board to maximize flexibility.
Giv Brantenberg, general manager HeidelbergCement Northern Europe, said “The project addresses emissions from the transport part of our value chain. It is unique, ambitious and future-orientated. It is fully in line with HeidelbergCement Group's target to be the leading actor in our industry on the path to carbon neutrality." HeidelbergCement estimates that the carbon footprint of the aggregates products can be reduced by 50 - 60% by using the zero emission vessel, as transport accounts for a significant part of the total carbon footprint of these products.
Russia: The government is ‘working to establish import flows’ of building materials from Uzbekistan. Russian media sources have reported that the construction industry is also hoping to expand import partnerships with China, India, Iran and Turkey. Russian cement production reportedly continues to adequately serve the national demand for cement.
Unacem boosts sales in 2021
31 March 2022Peru: Unacem’s sales were US$655m in 2021, up by 43% year-on-year from US$458m in 2020. It sold US$598m-worth of cement, up by 41% year-on-year from US$425m-worth, and exported US$30.3m of clinker, up by 35% year-on-year from US$22.5m-worth.
The producer said “2020 and 2021 have been years of great challenges for the world and our country because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, the company implemented a plan of measures that has allowed it to cope with this crisis, having as a fundamental pillar ensuring the safety and health of its employees, the sustainability of the company and all its shareholders. Likewise, the Peruvian government continues to take the necessary actions to mitigate the effects of the third wave of Covid-19 as well as to safeguard the payment chain of companies.”
How much does Holcim value Russia?
30 March 2022The economic fallout from the war in Ukraine continued this week with the news that Holcim plans to leave the Russian market. It said that it took the decision based on its “values to operate in the most responsible manner.” The company’s Russian subsidiary added that all of its plants would continue to operate as normal while it considered its divestment options.
Holcim’s road to withdrawal has been staggered. In February 2022 at the start of the war it pronounced its sympathy for any affected colleagues and their families and made a Euro1m donation to the Red Cross. Later it said that it would continue operating its business in Russia by following all regulations and supplying the local market. However, at this time it said it would suspend further capital investments in Russia and that it would “not benefit from our presence in this market.”
It’s unknown what prompted Holcim to take the plunge with Russia one month after the war started. At the very least, making decisions over assets valued this highly takes time. CM Pro has reported that the Russian government has considered introducing reference prices for building materials for infrastructure projects and that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has been monitoring prices for ‘unreasonable’ growth over the last month. This follows grumbling by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in late 2021 about an apparent low capacity utilisation rate in the country despite shortages in the Central Federal District.
CRH said that it was leaving its Russian concrete business in early March 2022. Yet the decision by Holcim makes it the first of the three western multinational cement producers with large-scale operations in Russia to publicly say it’s pulling out. Holcim, HeidelbergCement and Buzzi Unicem each operate at least two integrated cement plants in the region.
Lafarge entered the Russian market in 1996. Its successor Holcim runs plants at Voskresensk and Kolomna in the Moscow region, at Ferzikovo in the Kaluga region and Volsk in the Saratov region. Together the plants have a production capacity of around 9Mt/yr. Over the last decade Holcim and its predecessor has invested at least a reported Euro1.3bn in three of the plants. The dry-production line Ferzikovo plant was built in 2015. The Shchurovsky plant in Kolomna was originally founded in 1870 and claims to be the oldest in the country. In 2011 it started commissioned a new dry production line. The Volsk plant started a modernisation project in 2017. The fourth, the Voskresensk plant, was mothballed in 2016. However, in early February 2022 LafargeHolcim Russia said it was aiming to spend Euro23m towards restarting production at the site. This was likely due to a boom in construction in 2021. The subsidiary also owns three aggregate quarries in the Republic of Karelia region of the country, near the border with Finland.
Selling up in Russia looks set to be difficult for Holcim. This is principally due to the European and American economic sanctions and the Russian government’s stated intention to nationalise the assets of any company trying to leave. This is clearly why Holcim has worded its plans so vaguely. If or when a peace deal is reached between Russia and Ukraine, the business environment could change significantly, depending on the terms, complicating any existing sale process. Determining how much Holcim might want to get from such a sale in these conditions is complex. Smikom bought Eurocement from Sberbank for Euro2.1bn in 2021 giving it 10 plants. Could Holcim realistically expect to sell its plants for around Euro200m each in the current environment? As for the hit Holcim might take, in its annual report for 2021 it said that the group’s Russian operations represented around 1% of the 2021 consolidated net sales. This would have been around Euro260m. Its Russian cement production capacity was reported as being 9Mt/yr in 2021 or 3% of the group’s global figure of 293Mt/yr.
Finally, it is worth noting though that Lafarge’s charges of ‘complicity in crimes against humanity’ also continued to be tested in the French courts this week. The legal case relates to the conduct of Lafarge in Syria between 2011 and 2014. This is totally separate from the situation in Russia but it does highlight the issue of corporate ethics for the group once again. Following proceedings in December 2021, Beat Hess, chair of the board of Holcim said, “The described events concerning Lafarge SA were concealed from the Holcim board at the time of the merger in 2015 and go completely against the values of our company.” Consider that use of ‘values’ again. Holcim may be about to find out how much it is prepared to pay for its values as it departs Russia.
India: Shiva Cement's board of directors has approved the launch of a shareholders' vote over plans to increase its Odisha cement plant's capacity by 2Mt/yr. The plan also involves the expansion of the same plant's clinker capacity by 3Mt/yr and the installation of a 12MW waste heat recovery (WHR) plant. In addition to this, the company is seeking to open two new limestone mines with a combined capacity of 1.9 - 3.1Mt/yr at Khatkurbahal, also in Odisha. The company has received Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approval for all of the plans.
Germany: ThyssenKrupp Uhde, Holcim and the Technische Universität Berlin have started a joint project to investigate the use of a novel amine scrubbing technology for carbon capture. The goal is to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from existing cement plants and at the same time utilise the captured CO2 for other applications. This includes the development of new mass transfer process equipment that is more efficient and resilient to contaminations. The project is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
The equipment is being tested using exhaust gas at Holcim’s Beckum plant. Various possibilities for using the captured CO2 are also being examined, such as manufacturing methanol or sustainable fuels. The aim is develop a technology that can be retrofitted at existing cement plants.
Ralph Kleinschmidt, head of technology, innovation and sustainability at ThyssenKrupp Uhde said, "Amine scrubbing is already commonly used to recover CO2 from process gases or exhaust gases. Now, we are developing the technology further and optimising it for the cement industry. Additional applications for capturing CO2 direct at source, such as in waste incineration plants, are also possible."Arne Stecher, head of decarbonisation at Holcim Germany added that the company is testing different processes to find the best carbon capture technology.
PPC sales volumes driven by Zimbabwe and Rwanda
23 March 2022South Africa: PPC expects its group cement sales volumes to increase by 4 - 8% year-on-year for the financial year to 31 March 2022 due to strong performance in Zimbabwe and Rwanda. In an operational update it said that sales revenue is also expected to rise by 11 – 15%. However, sales volumes and sales revenue growth was reported as slower in South Africa and Botswana due to strong demand due to home improvement projects during the previous period.
The cement producer noted that it had yet to experience any ‘meaningful uplift’ in cement sales following the government’s decision to only use locally produced on infrastructure projects. It said that cement sales in coastal regions of South Africa were behind those in the previous reporting year. It said that cement imports, mainly from Vietnam, increased by 11% and accounted for approximately 10% of the local market.