Displaying items by tag: Government
India: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a prosecution complaint against Penna Cement for alleged irregularities related to the allocation of land and the granting of a mining lease. The agency has also named the deceased YSR Congress chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, V Vijaysai Reddy, Penna Group chairman Putta Pratap Reddy and Pioneer Holdings in the case, according to the Hans India newspaper. The complaint accuses the former Andhra Pradesh state government, run by Reddy, of allocating 231 acres in Yadiki mandal of Anantapur district to Penna Cements for setting up a cement plant and officials for allowing the allocation in violation of land acquisition rules.
The ED’s complaint also says that the government at the time refused mining leases to UltraTech Cement, granted a prospecting lease to Penna Cement and was complicit in other irregularities. In return for these actions the ED alleges that Penna Group invested US$10.6m in companies owned by Reddy, in violation of money laundering regulations. Previously, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed charges against Penna Cement, Raghuram Cements and India Cements for favours they allegedly received from the Andhra Pradesh state government in 2008 and 2009.
India: Y V Ramana Rao, president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) Vijayawada chapter has said that the building associations have solicited quotes for cement from Chinese producers because local prices are too high. The government has asked local cement producers to cap their prices, according to the Economic Times. However the builders associations have rejected some of the fixed prices as being too high.
India: Prism Cement has received a letter of intent from the state government of Madhya Pradesh to grant it a lease to mine cement grade limestone at Chulhi and Majhiyar, Satna district for 50 years. The lease covers reserves of about 23.6Mt and it applies to the cement producer’s plants in the state.
Nepal: Hongshi Shivam Cement’s Sardi cement plant project in Nalwalparasi is likely to be delayed due to slow progress by the government in building a road to a nearby limestone quarry. The project was due to start production in May 2017 but the slow rate of investment by the Chinese firm’s state partner has caused this completion estimate to be revised, according to the Kathmandu Post. Other infrastructure requirements for the project that are slowing it down include a 40km road to the site and an electricity substation.
Ivory Coast to import 150,000t of cement
26 April 2017Ivory Coast: The government has decided to import 150,000t of cement from April to July 2017 to cope with a local shortage. Cement will be imported in a strict agenda including 61,000t in May 2017, 64,000t in June 2017 and 25,000t in July 2017, according to the La Afrique Tribune newspaper. The government is also hoping that on-going cement plant projects will meet local demand when they are commissioned. The country previously imported cement to meet local shortages in 2015 when 300,000t was imported in three phases.
Norway: Norcem, part of HeidelbergCement Group, has awarded a contract for a concept study of carbon capture at its Brevik cement plant to Aker Solutions. It previously carried out testing with a pilot capture plant at Brevik. Norcem subsequently selected Aker Solutions' technology to be used for a potential facility at the cement plant. The oil and gas engineering company has also won a carbon capture contract from Yara to run a study at its Herøya ammonia plant.
"Aker Solutions can now offer carbon capture plants at lower costs and with less energy demand using a new non-corrosive and environmentally-friendly solvent that has very low degradation," said Oscar Graff, head of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at Aker Solutions. "The solvent is very robust and can be used for various types of flue gases and gives minimum emissions and waste products."
The study for Norcem will design a carbon capture plant that's integrated with the cement factory, including a process to turn the CO2 into liquid and storage facilities that can be used before shipping. The plant will have a capacity of about 400,000t/yr of CO2. The Yara study will design and develop a capture plant for the reformer flue gas and will also include liquefaction. Both concept studies are set to be completed in September 2017.
In April 2017 Gassnova, a state-run company for carbon capture and storage, announced the start of the concept studies as part of a goal to establish a complete CCS chain, including capture, transport and permanent storage, by 2022. The concept phase will also seek to establish more accurate cost estimates. The next phase in the process will involve front-end engineering design (FEED) work until around mid-2018 before an investment decision is made by the Norwegian government in the first half of 2019.
Aker Solutions has developed and qualified an improved carbon capture technology since 2008, investing in research and development, testing and operations. The company has gathered experience through design, construction and two years of operations of an amine plant at Technology Centre Mongstad and carried out tests in the US, the UK and Norway using its mobile carbon capture pilot plant.
India: The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) says that rising cement prices threaten Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s affordable residential construction scheme 'Housing for All.’ Nandu Belani, president of the Bengal chapter of CREDAI, said that his organisation had no choice but to pass rising prices on to consumers, according to the Times of India. CREDAI has also accused cement producers of ‘profiteering’ and alleged that they have formed a cartel. The developers argue that the cost of cement production has fallen following the introduction of various government subsidies.
India: The State High Level Clearance Committee of Karnataka has approved an expansion project at Birla Shakti Cement’s plant in Vasavadatta and a new plant at Gulbarga that will be built by India Cements. Birla Shakti Cement, a subsidiary of Kesoram Industries, is planning a US$97m upgrade to increase the plant’s production capacity to 9Mt/yr from 4.1Mt/yr. India Cements is planning to build a 2Mt/yr plant at Gulbarga.
Russia: Soyuzcement, a cement manufacturing union, predicts that cement production could rise by up to 3% to 57Mt in 2017. In the short-term cement production is expected to benefit from infrastructure investment to local government municipalities from the federal budget and from a reduction to the mortgage rate by the banks. In the longer term the union expects that housing development and concrete road construction will drive the industry, according to Interfax. However, cement production fell in the first two months of 2017 and remained stable in March 2017. Soyuzcement has also prepared a negative forecast that stated that production could fall by 4% in 2017.
Algeria to produce surplus of cement in 2017
19 April 2017Algeria: Abdesslem Bouchouareb, the Minister of Industry and Mines, has said that Algeria will report a surplus in cement production later in 2017. The minister said that the country is expecting to produce 30Mt of cement due to newly commissioned plants, according to the Algeria Press Service. He added that a ‘disturbance’ in the cement market had been caused by speculation and that the government was determined protect the local economy. The minister previously announced the commissioning of new plants at Adrar and in Biskra in April 2017.