Displaying items by tag: Plant

Pakistan: Thatta Cement has signed a memorandum of understanding with China-based Qing Gong Construction Group to build a 5000t/day production line. They concluded the deal during a state visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to China, according to the Radio Pakistan. Other agreements were also signed in sectors including renewable energy.

Zimbabwe: South Africa-based Robtek is working on a ‘refurbishment’ project at Khayah Cement’s integrated plant in Harare. The project work on the kiln includes replacing 10 planetary coolers, installing 23m of kiln shell sections and refurbishing eight support rollers. Work on the raw mill includes replacing trunnion bearings, overhauling raw mill bearings, upgrading the internal diaphragm and head wall liners and installing a new double-flap valve to replace the star feeder.

Canada: St Marys Cement, Votorantim Cimentos’ North American subsidiary, has ordered SpectraFlow Analytics’ Airslide analyser for its Bowmanville cement plant in Ontario. The analyser will replace the plant’s existing XRF Atline system installed at the back end of the plant’s 450t/hr raw materials mill. It will provide continuous one-minute sampling results, without the need to prepare samples separately. This in turn will facilitate real-time adjustments to the line’s additive weight feeders.

SpectraFlow Analytics says that its equipment will now be installed at plants across 30 countries globally.

Pakistan: Thatta Cement’s has increased its cement dispatches in the first half of its financial year despite a general reduction in the local market. Its cement despatches grew by 12% year-on-year to 254,000t in the six months to 31 December 2024 from 226,000t in the same period in 2023. The company’s net sales rose by 23% year-on-year to US$13.9m in the six months to 31 December 2024 from US$11.3m in the same period in 2023. It attributed this to a “…substantial increase in the retention price.” Its profit after tax tripled to US$4m from US$1.3m.

The cement producer said that it installed a 5MW solar power plant during the reporting period. It also expects to complete a 4.8MW wind farm in early 2025. The company started operating a new pre-crushing system for its cement grinding mills, supplied by Sinoma-Liyang Heavy Machinery, in mid-January 2025.

Saudi Arabia: City Cement Company has signed an agreement with the National Electricity Transmission Company to build a 106MW transmission station at its Nisah plant. Mist News has reported that electricity transmitted via the station will supplant oil generators at the plant. Construction is scheduled for completion later in 2025.

Canada: St Marys Cement has appointed Ali Firat as the Director, Operations at its Bowmanville cement plant in Ontario.

Firat previously worked as the Plant Manager at Traçim Çiment’s at Vize, Kirklareli in Türkiye. Before this he was a Production Manager for OYAK Cement. Earlier in his career he spent about 15 years working for Traçim Çiment and Ladik Cement in a variety of production roles. He is a graduate of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and holds a master of business administration (MBA) from Bahcesehir University in Istanbul.

France: Ecocem will build its first production facility dedicated to ACT, its low-carbon cement technology, at its Dunkirk site. The new site will be operational by 2026 with an initial capacity of 300,000t/yr of ACT.

The expansion will increase the plant's total production capacity to beyond 1Mt/yr and strengthen Ecocem’s operations in northern France, Paris and export markets. The first half of 2025 will see the installation of the key component of the facility, the mill, which will produce the required fillers, as well as expansion of blending and storage facilities. ACT is expected to be delivered to the market in the second half of 2026.

The total investment for the expansion is €50m, funded through a ‘green loan’ from the EthiFinance agency and supported by the French government and local authorities. France 2030's ‘Première Usine’ initiative also awarded a €3.6m grant, with additional grants from the Hauts-de-France Region and Dunkirk Urban Community.

Ecocem will partner with limestone supplier CB Green for the commercial production and delivery of ACT at the Dunkirk site.

Afghanistan: The Jabal al-Saraj cement plant project in Parwan province has completed 90% of initial exploration work, along with the drilling of 18 deep wells for mineral sampling, according to Tolo news.

The facility has been contracted between the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum and a Qatari firm, and is valued at US$220m.

Mohammad Idris Anwari, the governor of Parwan, said "The contracting company has completed 90% of the exploration work within six months, ahead of schedule. We are hopeful that the remaining construction and technical work will be completed within two years."

The plant will initially produce 3000t/day (0.96Mt/yr) of cement, rising to 9000t/day (2.9Mt/yr) in later phases. The project will reportedly create 5000 jobs.

PPC revealed plans this week to build a new cement plant in the Western Cape region of South Africa. It has entered into a “strategic cooperation agreement” with Sinoma Overseas Development Company to put together a 1.5Mt/yr integrated plant for around US$160m. It is hoped that construction will start in the second quarter of 2025 with commissioning scheduled by the end of 2026.

CEO Matías Cardarelli described more details about the project during a tie-in webcast on 16 January 2025. Specifically, the new unit will be built at the company’s integrated Riebeeck Plant site due to the quality of the local limestone and the greater reserves. In addition, all the key environmental approvals and mining rights have already been obtained. Both this plant, and the nearby De Hoek Plant, will continue to run throughout the construction and commissioning period. A decision will then be made about required staffing. PPC did not explicitly say whether the two old plants would be closed but the new plant will “replace and increase the existing capacity” at the other sites.

Points to note from the announcement start with the low cost for the clinker production line. PPC’s 1Mt/yr line at its Slurry plant cost around US$75m when it was commissioned in 2018. Sinoma also built that one. However, negative currency exchange effects make comparisons tricky. In 2015 PPC said that the cost of the Slurry line was around US$115/t. It pointed out that the price was low as it was a brownfield investment. This compares to US$107/t for the Western Cape project, another brownfield project. Other recent integrated plant projects in Sub-Saharan Africa to consider include Cemtech’s clinker plant in Sebit, Kenya (US$170/t) or West International Holding’s forthcoming plant in Buikwe District, Uganda (US$150/t). Plans for a new PPC plant in the Western Cape go back to at least 2017 when the then CEO Johan Claassen said it was preparing for a ‘mega plant.’ At the time it was hoping to replace its Riebeeck plant with a ‘semi-brownfield’ facility that would use around 25% of the current plant’s equipment. The scheme had actually been around longer but Claassen remarked that insufficient domestic demand had held it back.

The next detail to consider is that PPC is planning to build this new plant within 100km of the coast. This was addressed directly with PPC saying that the new plant would be “extremely competitive” against imports. They say it will be able to produce cement, at least, to a similar cost to imports from Vietnam. It was also remarked that only 10 - 15% of the 1Mt/yr of imports, mainly from Vietnam, go to the Western Cape with the rest heading to KwaZulu-Natal via the Port of Durban.

PPC’s plans in Riebeeck are part of its ‘Awaken the Giant’ development strategy. For its six month financial results statement to September 2024 it said that it had “early positive and encouraging signs in all lines of our business.” In South Africa its earnings were up despite lower sales volumes. Dangote Cement’s local subsidiary, Sephaku Holdings, reported a similar picture with a small bump in revenue and earnings back up after coal and fly ash supply constraints a year earlier. PPC isn’t the only cement company developing capacity. Huaxin Cement-owned Natal Portland Cement was reportedly investing US$65m in the autumn of 2024 towards expanding its Simuma Plant in KwaZulu-Natal.

The cement sector in South Africa had a couple of ownership changes in 2024. As mentioned above, China-based Huaxin Cement bought Natal Portland Cement from InterCement at the start of the year. Then, Afrimat received approval to buy Lafarge South Africa in April 2024. Both of these incomers have clear ambitions to expand in the industry. In this context PPC’s decision to finally revive its Western Cape plans, before whatever its new competitors devise, makes sense. Expect more talk of capacity upgrades in the future.

Türkiye: Two members of the cement sector have reportedly died in a fire at the Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center. Aysemin Elif Dogan, Mehmet Cem Dogan and their daughter perished in the incident, according to posts by their employers on LinkedIn. 76 people have so far reported to have been killed.

Aysemin Elif Dogan was the R&D and Quality Director for Baştaş Çimento, a subsidiary of France-based Vicat.

Mehmet Cem Dogan had been the plant manager of OYAK Çimento’s Bolu plant in Caydurt since 2023. Prior to this he was the manager of a plant in Ankara. Dogan previously worked for Vicat’s subsidiary Baştaş Çimento and Cimpor in process engineering and production management roles.