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Vicat confirms interest in Egyptian cement market 15 July 2021
Egypt: Tamer Magdy, the country manager for Sinai Cement, says that parent company Vicat is keen to continuing to invest in the local market. He noted that noted that the France-based building materials producer is a long-term investor with confidence in the Egyptian economy and that it has no plans to leave, according to the Daily News Egypt newspaper.
He praised the government’s decision in early July 2021 to introduce reduced cement production quotas. The group is also keen for the authorities to develop the Sinai region more, where its main market is based. Vicat has operated in Egypt since 2003 when it acquired Sinai Cement. However, Magdy also called on the government to provide subsidies for exports.
Sinoma International Engineering to build 10,000t/day clinker production line in Ethiopia 15 July 2021
Ethiopia: China-based Sinoma International Engineering’s subsidiary Suzhou Sinoma has signed an initial deal with Western International Holdings to build a 10,000t/day clinker production line at Lemi in Amhara Region for around US$326m. The line includes entry of raw materials to the packaging of finished cement. Once Western International Holdings establishes a company to carry out the project Suzhou Sinoma will sign a further contact to confirm the deal. At this point construction is expected to take around 20 months.
US: ForneyVault has partnered with Command Alkon to improve the quality control process for a mutual customer, Titan Virginia Ready-Mix. The concrete producer, a subsidiary of Greece-based Titan Group, previously relied on both suppliers’ products separately. Now, ForneyVault has integrated Command Alkon ‘s quality control technology into its own data collection software. It says that the integration will benefit the concrete producer’s testing capabilities. Titan Virginia uses Command Alkon’s CommandQC software product to validate the quality for its own internal ready-mix concrete products.
Command Alkon software product owner James Shilstone said “Forney’s decision to place their data in the cloud makes it easy to interface with CommandQC. Sharing data between the two programmes eliminates the need for double entry and makes the test results available to the QC manager more quickly.” ForneyVault vice president, platform development Scott Grumski added “Integration with Command Alkon’s software allows Titan’s quality control technician to lose the clipboard and pencil... The integration partnership reduces risk and advances compliance for Titan’s quality assurance programme.”
Cemex UK to implement MP Connect driver card by 2022 15 July 2021
UK: Cemex UK says that use of MP Connect contractor and haulier cards will be mandatory across its operations by the start of 2022. The Mexico-based Cemex subsidiary is presently rolling out the cards in its London and Southern ready-mix locations. It previously launched them at aggregates sites in its Central and Southern business areas. The system is now live at 39 sites and is used over 2000 times weekly, according to the company. It said that the initiative will help to streamline internal processes and enhance management of hauliers and contractors, legislative and site requirements are complied with.
Supply chain director Dave Hart said “Safety is Cemex’s number-one priority and we are always looking for ways to make our processes in this area more streamlined and effective. Implementation of the MP Connect system across our business will ensure that all drivers meet the standards set through checks of qualifications and competencies, while also providing them with more support and making their visits to different sites easier.” Cemex said that this will ‘enable the business to continually raise standards and lead the industry in safety and compliance.’
The MP Connect system was launched by the Mineral Products Qualifications Council (MPQC) in late 2020. It is intended to provide a single unified record of driver and operator working achievements that, when presented on a reader at site, can be viewed by logistics personnel. The information on the card then allows the logistics team to grant access, safe in the knowledge that the correct safety criteria applicable to the site, have been met by the person carrying the card.
Vote Holcim!
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
14 July 2021
LafargeHolcim became Holcim this week with the launch of its new group identity. It also released a manifesto. Corporate names and logos come and go in the swirl of capital but straight up declarations of intent are rarer. Companies in the normally conservative building materials sector don’t tend to do this. This is more the terrain of political movements. So what’s going on?
Figure 1: From a merger of equals to building progress for people and the planet, the LafargeHolcim and Holcim logos.
Looking at the new logo gives us a few clues. The light grey-brown Tetris-style ‘L’ and ‘H’ letters symbolising the ‘merger of equals’ have gone. In its place come two circular symbols that look like they might connect. Together they give the impression of a slanted figure of eight or a lemniscate (infinity symbol). All of this is set to a few shades of blue and green. Could these two symbols be suggesting recycling or the circular economy? Who knows, but hopefully the advertising agency that came up with it was well remunerated. Luckily for us Holcim’s chief executive officer, Jan Jenisch, explained it, “Today marks a milestone for our company in our transformation to become the global leader in innovative and sustainable solutions.”
The manifesto is clearer. Entitled ‘Building progress for people and the planet’ it lays out some of the problems facing the world, such as population growth, urbanisation and climate change mitigation. It then addresses how Holcim is already tackling these issues and how it wants to go further in becoming part of the answer. This is the big vision so it doesn’t trouble itself with the detail on how, for example, the company is going to eliminate process emissions from clinker production on its journey to net zero. This is after all the big pitch to hearts and minds. It also doesn’t stain its fingers with anything suggesting who is going to pay for this grand noble ambition. We’ll have to wait for the next investor’s event to discover how much of this dream washes over into the private equity and pension fund crowd.
In Holcim’s defence, as one of the world’s largest building materials producers, it needs to carve itself a grand vision to occupy within a future preoccupied with climate change. Pretty much everyone in the developed world uses products manufactured by Holcim and its competitors even if they don’t realise it. Yet they are increasingly becoming more aware of the negative issues raised by environmental campaigners. Over in the developing world, adequate housing and infrastructure provision are live political issues for many as economies grow. Threading the needle to tie these trends together is quite the challenge for Holcim and the others. As a public company it serves its shareholders, but, as a multinational wedged in the middle of the climate change debate cascading into global politics, it ultimately answers to everyone. Hence a mission statement or a manifesto makes sense.
Meanwhile, for a glimpse on the Chinese approach to these kinds of problems, China National Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary China Building Materials Academy (CBMA) signed a knowledge sharing agreement this week with the Canada-based International CCS Knowledge Centre to collaborate on carbon capture technology. The project plans to start with a 155kg CO2/day pilot on an active cement plant kiln. If successful, the study could lead to CNBM rolling it out across its entire cement operations. This would be hugely significant globally and given the scale of the Chinese industrial sector there’s also a reasonable chance it could happen at speed. If this occurred CNBM could leave the politics to its owner, the Chinese government.