Displaying items by tag: Cemex
UK: Cemex UK has commissioned a new 25kg plasticcement bag packing line at its Rugby cement plant in Warwickshire. The line will operate alongside an existing paper bagging line.
Cemex UK's packed cement sales manager Graeme Barton said “The packaging of our products is under routine scrutiny to meet customer demand and reduce waste. We have listened to what our merchants and customers need, and by investing in higher, more reliable capacity, Cemex can now meet the demand from the market in peak months with greater confidence. In turn, our stockists can meet their customers’ requirements by supplying what they need, in a format that works better for them. Our merchants and end-users are already seeing the immediate benefits of the new packaging by reporting fewer breakages in branch and onsite – which helps to cut down on waste."
Germany: Cemex Deutschland’s carbon capture partner Carbon Clean has hired US-based engineering company KBR to carry out installation of the planned 100t/day CycloneCC carbon capture system at the producer’s Rüdersdorf cement plant in Brandenburg. KBR will provide front-end engineering design (FEED) services for the project.
KBR global technology solutions president Jay Ibrahim said "Reaching net zero targets requires expertise from different industries to work together, and we make a powerful team. Hopefully, it will be the first of many such projects."
Trinidad & Tobago: Workers at Trinidad Cement’s Claxton Bay cement plant have launched a protest at the plant against an alleged breach of employment contracts. Troubled Company Reporter Latin America News has reported that Trinidad Cement has allegedly underpaid employees for more than seven years, with no cost of living allowance or gain share payments, and resulting pension miscalculations, according to a union representing the workers.
Philippines: Cemex Holdings Philippines has appointed Luis Guillermo Franco Carrillo as its president and chief executive with effect from 1 June 2022. He has succeeded Ignacio Mijares, who will now lead Corporate Strategic Planning at the Cemex central office.
Franco Carrillo previously worked as the Builders Segment Vice President for Cemex Mexico. He holds over 23 years of experience with Cemex, since joining the company in 1999. Prior to his assignment to the Philippines, Luis worked in senior positions in the UK, Hungary and Mexico. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and a master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Cemex launches Green Financing Framework
29 June 2022Mexico: Cemex has launched a Green Financing Framework. The framework is intended to allow the building materials producer to issue green financing instruments aligned with the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles and the Loan Market Association Green Loan Principles. Under the Framework, Cemex intends to allocate the net proceeds from the issuances to finance eligible green projects in areas such as CO2 emissions reduction, clean electricity and energy efficiency, clean transportation, water management, air quality, circular economy and waste management. The framework reflects the roadmap and objectives of Cemex's climate action program, Future in Action. Cemex says it is the first of its kind in the building materials sector.
“After launching our Sustainability-Linked Financing Framework in 2021, it is only natural for us to build on that initiative with additional sustainable finance innovation in the form of the Green Financing Framework, that will enable the building of a more resilient future for all,” said Maher Al-Haffar, Cemex's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and founding member of the United Nations Global Compact CFO Coalition for the Sustainable Development Goals.
Spain: Cemex España has received clearance from the Balearic Islands Environmental Commission (CMAIB) to import up to 10,000t/yr of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to Majorca. Ultima Hora Online News has reported that the producer will substitute some of the limestone used in the company's Lloseta plant's cement production with the material.
Waste management company Tirme previously handled the Lloseta cement plant's slag supply.
Cemex fined US$89,000 for omitted transactions
21 June 2022Mexico: The Mexican Federal Economic Competition Commission (COFECE) has fined Cemex US$89,000 for failing to notify it of a transaction that exceeded the threshold for notification. COFECE also approved the transaction in question.
Cemex has the right to seek legal recourse against the fine.
Update on electric cement kilns
15 June 2022Coolbrook has been in the news recently with collaboration deals struck with Cemex and UltraTech Cement. First the Finland-based company officially launched its Roto Dynamic Heater (RDH) technology with a memorandum of understanding signed with Cemex in May 2022. Then, this week, it signed a similar agreement with UltraTech Cement.
The specifics of either agreement are unknown but the target is clearly to build an industrial pilot of an electric kiln – or something like it - at a cement plant. Coolbrook says it has run a pilot of its RDH technology in Finland. Further tests are now scheduled to continue for two years starting from September 2022 at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus at Geleen in the Netherlands. Commercial scale demonstrations are scheduled from 2022 with the hope of commercial use from 2024. Links with Cemex and UltraTech Cement seem to suggest progress. At the same time Coolbrook will be testing its RotoDynamic Reactor (RDR) technology, which promises to electrify the steam cracking process used in plastic manufacturing.
Publically available details on the RDH technology are light. In its promotional material Coolbrook says that it can achieve process temperatures of up to around 1700°C. This is crucial to achieve full clinker formation in a cement kiln. Reaching this temperature with non-combustion style kilns, such as solar reactors, has previously been a problem. Notably, Synhelion and Cemex said in February 2022 that they had managed to produce clinker using concentrated solar radiation. Retrofit possibilities and compact equipment size are also mentioned in the promotional material for the RDH. The former is an obvious attraction but size of equipment footprint is increasingly emerging as a potential issue for cement plants looking to reduce their CO2 emissions. Rick Bohan from the Portland Cement Association (PCA) presented a summary of the potential and problems of emerging carbon capture and utilisation/storage (CCUS) technologies for cement plants in the US at the Virtual Global CemCCUS Seminar that took place on 14 June 2022. He noted that installing CCUS equipment makes cement plants start to look different (more like petrochemical plants in the view of Global Cement Weekly) and that they may require more space to install it all.
Coolbrook hasn’t been the only organisation looking at kiln electrification. The installation with the most available information on kiln electrification has been the Decarbonate project, led by the VTT, formerly known as the Technical Research Centre of Finland. The project has built a pilot rotary kiln with a length of 8m inside a shipping container. It has a production capacity of around 25kg/hr. The system reportedly uses fixed radiant heating coils around the kiln, surrounded by insulation materials. Early results presented to the 1st Virtual Global CemPower Seminar in late 2021 were that the kiln started up, sufficient calcination was occurring and the system was operated continuously for three days at a temperature of 1000°C with no problems reported. Further research was scheduled to carry on into 2022 with longer trials planned for three different materials.
HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary in Sweden, Cementa, completed a feasibility study on implementing electrified cement production at its Slite plant in 2019. It then said that it was conducting further study with electricity producer Vattenfall as part of CemZero project. This consists of three projects running to 2025. Namely: heat transfer with plasma in rotary kilns; direct separation of carbon dioxide from calcination of carbonate-based raw materials in the production of cement clinker and burnt lime; and carbon dioxide-free products with electrified production - reactivity of cement clinker with secondary additives. HeidelbergCement has since announced plans to build a full scale 1.8Mt/yr carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant at the Slite cement plant by 2030.
How this would fit with any kiln electrification plans is unknown. However, one attraction of moving to an electrical kiln, for all of the projects above, is to cut out the 40 – 50% of a cement plant’s CO2 emissions that arise from the fuel that is burnt. Taking a kiln electric also makes CO2 capture easier. Much of the remainder of the CO2 released comes from the decomposition of limestone during calcination when clinker is created. Substitute out fossil or alternative fuels and the flue gas becomes much purer CO2.
It is early days for cement kiln electrification but progress is happening both commercially and scientifically. The next step to watch out for will be the first pilot installation at a cement plant. One point to finish with is a comment that Rick Bohan made at the IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference that took place in May 2022: carbon capture is expected to double a cement plant’s energy consumption. Kiln electrification is one potential route for cement production to reach net zero. CCUS is another. If one or both occur then a low carbon future could be a high energy one also.
Watch out for Global Cement’s forthcoming interview with Coolbrook in the September 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine
For more on CCUS, download the proceedings pack for the Virtual Global CemCCUS Seminar 2022
Guatemala: Cemex has secured its electricity supply for its Guatemalan operations until 2027 through the signing of a renewable power purchase agreement with Enel Green Power. Enel Green Power will supply an estimated 164GWh of renewable energy under the agreement, enabling Cemex to operate one of its Guatemalan cement facilities using 100% renewable energy.
“Transitioning to renewable energy sources is an integral part of our climate action strategy,” said Cemex South, Central America and the Caribbean president Jesús González. “We remain committed to becoming a net-zero CO2 company and are taking decisive steps to achieve this goal.”
Germany: Cemex has inaugurated the Carbon Neutral Alliance at its integrated Rüdersdorf cement plant. The initiative is intended to accelerate the development of the site into the world’s first carbon-neutral cement facility by 2030. Jörg Steinbach, Brandenburg’s Minister of the Economy, Fernando A Gonzalez, the chief executive officer of Cemex, the Mexican ambassador to Germany and representatives from Sasol attended the event.
The Carbon Neutral Alliance comprises a network of over 20 private and public organisations, dedicated to industrial decarbonisation. Among the technologies being introduced at Rüdersdorf include a waste heat recovery project scheduled for the summer of 2022, the development of renewable energy generation and a scheme to produce aviation fuel onsite in coordination with Sasol and Enertrag.
In 2020 Cemex announced its decarbonisation target of reducing its CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. This target is expected to be achieved in Europe in 2022. By 2030, Cemex intends to reduce emissions at its European sites by 55%, in line with European Union's new strategy to reduce CO2 emissions. Cemex has also announced its goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in concrete by 2050.