27 January 2015
India begins coal block allocation process 27 January 2015
India: The Coal Ministry has begun the process of allotment of mines to central and state public sector units, starting with the allotment of 36 coal blocks.
The Supreme Court had in September 2014 scrapped all but four of 218 coal blocks allocated by the government over the past two decades, in a tougher-than-expected ruling that sank shares of companies that have invested heavily in projects around the concessions. Most power, steel and cement companies that won blocks have until end-March to return them and the government then plans to auction them off. The previous practice of selective allocation was ruled illegal and arbitrary by the court.
Coal secretary Anil Swarup said that the ministry has started the process of coal allocation. "Today, we are issuing a notification for the allotment of 36 coal blocks. More mines will be added subsequently depending on the requirement. It will depend on the request we receive from state entities or the public sector undertakings in terms of allocation of coal blocks," said Swarup. He added that the ministry would issue guidelines for the coal blocks and those firms that already have coal linkages will have to surrender them. Once the linkages are surrendered then more coal will be made available to state-owned Coal India Limited. Coal India accounts for about 80% of the country's total output. Coal fuels 60% of the country's power production.
"Out of 101 mines, we are looking at 98 mines, as the coal ministry has examined them and it was discovered that there were three blocks in a 'No Go' area. Out of 98 mines, 36 blocks are going for allocation. 42 mines are auctioned, 23 blocks are in schedule II and 23 blocks are in schedule III. The remaining 16 will be auctioned in the future," said Swarup. Around 167 bidders have requested to visit the coal block site.
Coal India plans to engage an external consultant to examine various structures and implementation models to auction the coal linkages. The consultant would examine various structures and implementations models for the auction of coal linkages / LoAs (Letter of Assurances) or other such market-based mechanisms and to recommend the optimal structure that would meet the requirements of all the stakeholders.
Italy: Italcementi and Italian brake systems maker Brembo have joined forces in a project to produce cement-based brake pads with low ecological impact. The research is funded by the 'Life' programme of the European Union and is being conducted by Brembo, Italcementi and the Mario Negri Institute, which for many years has been committed to biomedical research and the impact of pollutants on the environment and health.
The 'Cobra' project was launched at the end of 2014. Some 41 researchers with varying skills and experience will work within the project in the next four years. The novel brake pad production technology will be based on an innovative hydraulic binder composition instead of phenolic resins, at comparable braking performance. State-of-the-art brake pads are constituted by thermosetting phenolic resins, which are suitable for friction and relatively high contact temperature applications. Moreover, reinforcing and filling constituents, about 90% in mass, are incorporated into the polymeric matrix.
The raw materials involved in the hydraulic binder production will allow less energy consumption (75 - 83MJ/kg phenolic resin compared to 3 - 9.4MJ/kg cement) and water consumption (94 - 282L/kg phenolic resin compared to 1.7 - 5.1L/kg cement). In addition, the technology will avoid the emission of aerosols and secondary ultrafine particulate, PM0.1 in particular, generated by traditional phenolic-resin-made pads during braking.
Norm Sement reaches its designed capacity 27 January 2015
Azerbaijan: The largest cement plant in the South Caucasus, Norm Sement, situated in Garadagh District of Baku City, has reached its design capacity, according to Norm Sement's CEO Hasan Yalcinkaya. The plant has 5000t/day of clinker production capacity and 2Mt/yr of cement production capacity. Yalcinkaya said that 2014 was successful for the company and Azerbaijan's cement industry as a whole.
"We managed to successfully complete our projects," said Yalcinkaya. "The cement plant was inaugurated by the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on 21 July 2014. "Since that time, the plant has been working very efficiently and has started to produce its own clinker. We have reached our design capacity. So, I can say that 2014 has been successful. 510,000t of cement was produced, while clinker production was at the level of 471,000t in 2014. We were able to cover about 20% of the market for just six months since the beginning of clinker production. We plan to increase our market share with the production of high-quality cement and rendering high-quality services to our clients in the consumer market."
Yalcinkaya further noted that, in 2014, Azerbaijan's domestic demand for cement stood at around 4.3Mt and in 2015 year demand will be at least on the same level. "Currently, about 60% of the market is provided by local producers," said Yalcinkaya. "About 40% of cement is imported from neighbouring countries." He said that the local production plants are fully capable of meeting the market requirements. "Our goal is to reduce cement imports as much as possible," said the CEO.
"To date, we have invested US$326m in the new plant," said Yalcinkaya. "We have several projects on efficiency and production improvements, in particular the expansion of the product range. We will continue to improve our efficiency and reduce energy consumption. We also plan to invest in the production of cement for oil wells."
According to Yalcinkaya, oil well cement production will be developed in 2015. "This is exactly the product that we can easily export to oil producing countries, for instance, to Kazakhstan and Russia," said Yalcinkaya. "Once we develop this product, we will start to export it."