Displaying items by tag: US
Chevron New Energies leads investment round in Svante
23 December 2022Canada: Chevron New Energies (CNE), a division of Chevron USA, is the lead investor in Svante’s Series E fundraising round, which raised US$318m. The capital will be used to accelerate the manufacture of Svante’s carbon capture technology. Other fundraising round participants include existing shareholders Temasek, OGCI Climate Investments, Delek US and Hesta AG, and new investors, 3M Ventures, Full Circle Capital, GE Vernova, the Japan Energy Fund, Liberty Media, M&G Catalyst, Samsung Ventures, TechEnergy Ventures and United Airlines Ventures.
Chevron Technology Ventures made an initial investment in Svante in 2014. In 2020, Chevron launched a project to pilot Svante’s technology to capture CO2 from post combustion of natural gas. The project has received funding from the US Department of Energy. In collaboration with Svante and the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the technology will be tested at Chevron’s Kern River facility in San Joaquin Valley, California, with start-up scheduled for December 2022.
Svante was founded in 2007 and it has developed carbon capture and removal technology using structured adsorbent beds, known as filters. The latest funding will support Svante’s commercial-scale filter manufacturing facility in Vancouver. Trials using Svante’s technology in the cement sector have been run at Lafarge Canada’s Richmond cement plant in British Colombia and Holcim US’s Florence cement plant in Colorado.
2022 in cement news
21 December 2022Taking a look at the most read news stories on the Global Cement website in 2022 reveals what readers have been interested in. The usual bias applies due to the prominence of countries where English is prevalent and there is a concentration on stories from earlier in the year. Yet, even with these constraints, key trends identified elsewhere emerge. Read the December 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine for a roundup of what we think has been noteworthy.
Top 10 news stories on Global Cement website in 2022
1. Holcim receives bids for Ambuja Cements
2. JK Lakshmi Cement and TARA to launch limestone calcined clay cement production
3. Ramco Cements to commission new plant at Kurnool in February 2022
4. CalPortland to buy Redding cement plant from Martin Marietta
5. ACC launches Houses of Tomorrow in India
6. CRH exits Russian market
7. HeidelbergCement freezes investments in Russian operations
8. US facing cement shortage
9. HeidelbergCement, Holcim and Sabancı Holding are potential buyers for Sika’s US assets
10. Jaiprakash Associates seeking to sell all assets
The two large India-based acquisition and merger (M&A) stories are both present at early stages of their development. Firstly, Adani Group went on to buy Holcim’s two subsidiaries, Ambuja Cements and ACC, becoming the second largest cement producer in the country. Secondly, Jaiprakash Associates was reported to be in dire financial straits in the autumn and looking to sell off more assets. This came to pass in mid-December 2022 when Dalmia Cement (Bharat) reached a deal to buy Jaiprakash Associates’ cement assets for US$684m. Incidentally, Adani Group made the news this week when it published plans to suspend production at two of its newly acquired cement plants in Himachal Pradesh due to high freight rates. The state government responded with a court order requiring the cement producer to justify its actions that, in its view, would detrimentally affect the lives of many. While it seems unlikely that the plants will close permanently, this incident does demonstrate that Adani Group is starting to take action with its new cement business.
The other M&A story concerns cement companies buying assets outside of the standard cement, concrete and aggregates triad. Global Cement has covered this business shift increasingly since Holcim acquired Firestone Building Products in 2021. The story in 2022 that readers were interested in concerned potential buyers for Sika US, an admixture manufacturer. This one also has a sustainability angle because admixtures can be used to make cement and concrete more efficient in different ways. A more obvious example of cement production becoming more environmentally friendly was that of an India-based cement producer preparing to start production of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3). The increased production of blended cements around the world has been a big story in 2022, particularly in the US.
Cement shortages in parts of the US were a theme we picked up on a few times in 2022. Nationally it followed supply issues in the southwest in early 2021 that led Cemex to restart a mothballed kiln at a plant in Mexico with the express aim of serving the export market.
In April 2022 shortages were being reported on the other side of the country in Alabama and South Carolina. Ultimately this was blamed on labour and supply chain issues in the aftermath of the coronavirus shutdowns. The other big US story in 2022 was back in California where CalPortland agreed to buy the Redding cement plant from Martin Marietta. The subsidiary of Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement later struck a further deal to buy the Tehachapi plant, also from Martin Marietta, in August 2022. Both of these integrated plants were previously sold by Lehigh Hanson to Martin Marietta in 2021. In November 2022 Lehigh Hanson announced that its remaining integrated unit in California, the Permanente plant near Cupertino, was going to be transitioned to a distribution and quarry site.
Finally, the top news stories in 2022 where not immune to the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The big underlying narrative has been a jolt to global energy prices. What could be seen here though were the efforts of the multinational cement producers to limit their exposure to the market in Russia and any potential legal action. CRH led the exodus, although it had a relatively small business to offload. Heidelberg Materials froze its investments in its Russia-based subsidiary in March 2022. Holcim completed the divestment of its business to local management in mid-December 2022. Buzzi Unicem withdrew from any operational involvement with its subsidiary SLK Cement in May 2022.
That’s it from Global Cement Weekly for 2022. Enjoy the seasonal and New Year break if you have one.
Global Cement Weekly will return on 4 January 2023
Filiberto Ruiz elected as chair of PCA
14 December 2022US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has elected Filiberto Ruiz as its next chair. He is the current vice-chair of the association and is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Votorantim Cimentos North America. He will succeed Ron Henley, the president of GCC of America, in the post.
Massimo Toso has been elected as the vice chair. He is the PCA’s Climate and Sustainability Council co-chair and is the president and CEO of Buzzi Unicem USA. David Loomes, the president of Continental Cement Company, has also joined the PCA board. He succeeds Tom Beck, the executive vice president of Summit Materials, who has stepped down from the board.
USGS publishes Cement in September 2022 report
09 December 2022US: Cement companies produced 58.5Mt of clinker during the first nine months of 2022, in line with nine-month 2021 volumes, according to the United States Geological Service (USGS). The USGS’s Cement in September 2022 report recorded export volumes of 314,000t of cement in the nine-month period up to September 2022, down by 4.2% year-on-year. Meanwhile, delivery figures showed a growth in domestic cement shipments of 4.1% year-on-year to 83.2Mt.
US: Purebase and Fortera have signed a non-binding agreement to build a commercial plant at Purebase’s headquarters in Ione, California. The companies are working towards a definitive agreement to build a plant using Fortera proprietary recarbonation process that uses captured CO2 and mineralises it into a secondary cementitious material.
Scott Dockter, the chairman, and chief executive officer of Purebase, said, “We believe that a strategic partnership with Fortera would put Purebase on a fast-track to bring a lower carbon product to market.” He added, “We believe Fortera has developed a unique solution to reduce carbon emissions in cement, and it will have the advantage of using Purebase’s mineral resources and location in Ione, California which is ideally located in northern California near major ports which can effectively serve the western-US markets and abroad.”
Purebase acquires, develops, and markets minerals for use in agriculture, construction, and other specialty industries.
US: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering has launched a new carbon capture alliance with energy company ExxonMobil. Under the partnership, ExxonMobil will deploy Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering's liquid amine carbon capture model for its customers across multiple industries. Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) will also support the deployment in more CO2-intensive industries, including cement.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering president and CEO Kenji Terasawa said “Carbon capture and storage technology and innovation are critical to our path to net zero. As an expert in advanced engineering, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is committed to leading the way in achieving decarbonisation goals through strategic collaboration and investments in new technologies. We look forward to partnering with ExxonMobil to continue advancing carbon capture technologies, to provide essential carbon neutrality solutions for various industries.”
Titan America completes Portland limestone cement conversion
30 November 2022US: Titan America has successfully converted its cement operations to 100% Portland limestone cement (PLC) production. As part of its transition, the producer established two new 70,000t storage domes to serve its key markets.
President and CEO Bill Zarkalis said "I would like to thank all members of the Titan America team who are able and energised to provide the highest performing products to our customers, and do so with our 2030 goals for a sustainable future at top of mind. Our conversion to 100% Type IL PLC production and our expanded investments to deliver lower carbon products and solutions to customers showcase the progress we have made and our commitment to accelerate our contribution to addressing climate change."
Update on CRH, November 2022
23 November 2022CRH released its third quarter trading statement this week and the results were rosy, especially when compared to its peers in the cement business. Double digit growth in both sales revenue and earnings was reported for the nine month period so far in 2022. The company’s figures mainly attributed this to growth in its Americas Materials and Building Products divisions, although the presentation in its trading update took care to point out that the Europe Materials division had reported growth in the first half of 2022 only for it to run into a slowdown in the third quarter as energy prices increased. Even this wasn’t as bad on a like-for-like basis, with only earnings down in the third quarter in Europe. Chief executive officer Albert Manifold summed it up as follows: “This performance reflects the resilience of our business and the benefits of our integrated and sustainable solutions strategy.”
Manifold’s focus on integrated products was unsurprising given that the group has spent US$3bn in the year to date on businesses that make these kinds of things. These acquisitions have been added to its Building Products division adding to its already strong growth so far in 2022. The big one was the US$1.9bn deal to buy Barrette Outdoor Living, a US-based retailer and distributor of residential fencing and railing products. This was completed in July 2022. Other so-called bolt-on investments in 2022 have reached a total of US$1.1bn for 20 companies including Calstone, Hinkle, Rinker and Normandy in outdoor living, road and critical utility infrastructure sectors.
At the same time the group divested its architectural glass Building Envelope business for an enterprise value of US$3.8bn to private equity company KPS Capital Partners. That deal was completed in May 2022. On a smaller scale, it is also worth noting that Thomas Gruppe announced in early November 2022 that it had signed a purchase agreement to buy Opterra Zement and Opterra Beton. This includes the integrated Karsdorf cement plant, the decommissioned Sötenich grinding plant and the Neufahrn ready-mix concrete plant. However, there was no mention by Thomas Gruppe of the integrated Wössingen plant operated by Opterra Wössingen. Neither Opterra or CRH appears to have commented on this publicly yet though.
How CRH tweaks its business portfolio is interesting in comparison to the other cement companies. As Global Cement Magazine has covered recently, Holcim is bulking up a fourth business in light building materials and Cemex, Heidelberg Materials and others are similarly diversifying away from cement production to various degrees. CRH has generally held a more mixed portfolio away from the heavy materials trio of cement-concrete-aggregates over the last decade. However, it concentrated more on heavy materials when it picked up assets divested in the merger of Lafarge and Holcim in 2015. Since then it has been steadily pulling out of developing markets and focusing on North America and Europe. So, to see CRH moving out of the building envelope sector at the same time as Holcim and others dive in is a clear difference in approach.
The other point to highlight is that Manifold links sustainability to the group’s integrated products plan in his quote above. Earlier in 2022 the company revealed a new 25% reduction target in absolute CO2 emissions by 2030, that has been certified by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and a continued goal of becoming net-zero by 2050. It clearly takes sustainability seriously as Manifold was also previously the president of the Global Cement and Concrete Association when it was set up in 2018. Other indicators include the company’s use of an internal carbon price as indicated in its 2021 sustainability report. It also mentioned here that 43% of its direct CO2 emissions were covered under an emissions trading scheme. One implication here is that focusing on doing business in developed markets means that the group has to take its CO2 emissions seriously, as legislators in these places do too.
CRH is one of the largest building materials companies in the world and its cement business has grown and shrunk a little over the last decade. Despite this it remains in the top 10 of cement producers globally based on production capacity. Its purview of multiple markets in building materials continues to make it a company to watch as the more traditional heavy materials cement companies adjust their own product portfolios.
US: Cemex USA and RTI International have secured US$3.7m in funding from the US Department of Energy for their Balcones cement plant amine technology carbon capture study. The plant in New Braunfels, Texas, will trial RTI International's non-aqueous solvent (NAS) system, licensed by energy and technology company SLB. Resources News has reported that the system will have a CO2 capture capacity of 670,000t/yr. RTI International's principal project investigator Vijay Gupta said that NAS capture has a 30 - 40% lower energy penalty than preceding solvent-based technologies.
Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro said "We remain committed to exploring technologies that can help us meet our targets as we build a more sustainable future. We are striving to cut emissions across all our operations, and this study with RTI International is one of the many steps Cemex is taking to achieve our objectives."
Cemex announces raft of carbon capture projects
22 November 2022Mexico: Cemex has announced a raft of new carbon capture projects in Europe and North America. When commissioned, they will bring its total installed CO2 capture capacity to over 3Mt/yr. The projects consist of three front-end engineering (FEED) studies to scale installations of Australia-based Leilac’s direct separation technology at Cemex cement plants in Germany, Poland and the US; a fourth FEED study for 95% capture installation at the Balcones, Texas, cement plant using RTI International's solvent capture technology and a development partnership for the cement industry's most comprehensive carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) studies at eight further cement plants in Europe, Mexico and the US.
Chief executive officer Fernando González said “CCUS brings together the essence of our strategic priorities: sustainability and innovation. Our Future in Action programme to achieve sustainable excellence and become a net-zero company is all about measurable, verified progress towards the most ambitious decarbonisation pathway in the industry. Although CCUS technologies are not ready to be scaled quite yet, it will take relentless work and innovation to ensure their viability in time to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change.”