21 October 2016
Pakistan: Fecto Cement has appealed to the Islamabad High Court to allow it to continue mining in the Margalla Hills. In August 2016 it had its mining lease cancelled by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and a fine was issued. This followed an order by the Supreme Court in March 2015 to stop all development and stone crushing activities, according to the Dawn newspaper. In 2013 the Islamabad Capital Territory issued a mining lease that allowed Fecto Cement to carry out stone crushing activities in the area until 2030.
Cementos Argos to upgrade San Lorenzo grinding plant 21 October 2016
Honduras: Argos Honduras plans to spend US$25m towards upgrading its San Lorenzo grinding plant. The site has a production capacity of 300,000t/yr and it will develop its range of Ordinary Portland Cement products, said Argos Honduras director Harry Abuchaibe to La Prenza newspaper. The plant, formerly known as Cesur Grinding Station, was purchased from Lafarge in 2013 as part of a package of assets acquired at that time. Argos Honduras also operates a 1Mt/yr integrated cement plant in the country at Comayagua.
Brazil: Brazil's antitrust watchdog Cade has decided to end its investigation into 18 companies from the cement sector over alleged anti-competition practices. The allegations were that some of the companies had reached an agreement to refuse to provide three types of cement to competitors outside of an economic group, which would lead to increased prices of the products, according to the Valor Economico newspaper. Cade determined punishments were to be applied to Holcim Brasil, Cimento Tupi and Votorantim Pimentos. However, case leader Paulo Burnier decided that there insufficient evidence to apply sanctions on the majority of companies concerned. He also noted that some of the companies had already been set punishments by Cade for involvement in cartel practices.
Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation and Al Rajhi Group to upgrade Chhatak Cement plant 21 October 2016
Bangladesh: The government owned Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Group to build a new production line and a captive power plant at the Chhatak Cement plant. The project is a joint venture between the companies and it will be run as a public-private partnership, according to the Financial Express newspaper. The new cement line and power plant will have a production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr and 330MW respectively. Industries minister Amir Hossain Amu, BCIC secretary Hasnath Ahmed Chowdhury and managing director of Al Rajhi Company for Industry & Trade Yousif Al Rajhi signed the agreement in Bangladesh on 20 October 2016.
China: China Resources Cement’s (CRC) profit has fallen by 36% to US$102m in the first nine months of 2016 from US$159m in the same period of 2015. Its turnover fell by 11.5% to US$2.25bn from US$2.55bn. Cement sales volumes grew by 5.4% to 57Mt from 54Mt and clinker sales volumes fell by 22% to 2.9Mt from 3.8Mt. Turnover fell in all regions that the cement producer operates in with the exception of Yunnan and Guizhou. No explanation was provided for the falling turnover and profit but the company did highlight that the average cost per tonne of cement fell by 14% year-on-year.
China: FLSmidth, Sino Environment Engineering Development (SEPTEC) and China Resources Cement (CRC) have signed a partnership to provide pyroprocessing co-processing systems to cement plants. FLSmidth will be responsible for the design, engineering and integration of the integrated waste burning solution, with SEPETC acting as a general contractor.
The agreement follows a project at CRC's Hongshuihe cement plant that took municipal and industrial waste from the city of Binyang in Guangxi. FLSmidth installed a Hotdisc system that could process 300t/day of waste to support the cement plant’s cement production capacity of 3200t/day.
"China's energy intensive industries, such as cement production, are coming under pressure from the government that wants to rebalance the economy towards a less energy-hungry mode of growth, curb pollution and reduce carbon emissions. CRC plans to initiate several similar municipal solid waste co-processing projects for other cement producers with FLSmidth and SEPETC as partners," said FLSmidth China Country Manager, Cyril Leung.
In China's latest five-year plan, the government encourages more cement producers to co-process municipal solid waste in the cement industry, with an aim of getting 15 - 20% of the cement kilns in the country to be co-processing waste by 2020. In 2017, China will introduce a national carbon-trading scheme in 2017.