Displaying items by tag: Upgrade

Dominican Republic: The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, has inaugurated the kiln of a restarted production line at the San Pedro de Macorís cement plant. The US$34m upgrade project was started in 2021. The line has a clinker production capacity of 0.5Mt/yr and it has been restarted to support the local market. The announcement follows the start of a project to use hydrogen at the unit that began in late August 2022. The plant also plans to increase its use of alternative fuels, move to using more CO₂-free materials and increase its use of additives over the next five years.

India: Birla Corporation plans to increase its cement production capacity to 30Mt/yr in 2030 from 20Mt/yr at present. It made the proclamation in its annual report for the 2021 – 2022 financial year. Recent developments include the inauguration of its 3.9Mt/yr integrated plant at Mukutban in Maharashtra, run under its RCCPL subsidiary. It is the group’s fourth integrated plant and is reportedly the largest single cement production line in the state. The unit also includes a 40MW captive power plant.

Other developments include plans to expand the capacity of its Kundanganj grinding plant in Uttar Pradesh to 3Mt/yr from 2Mt/yr and a plan to build a new 1.2Mt/yr grinding plant at Gaya in Bihar. The group is also increasing production from its captive coal mines. Output from the Sial Ghoghri coal mine has been increased by 20% above its rated capacity to 30,000t/month. Development of the Bikram coal mine has been advanced and production is expected to start in mid-2023. Finally, the group is adding 8MW of solar power capacity at its Chanderia, Satna and Kundanganj plants in the current financial year and a 10.6MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit is planned for the Mukutban plant.

Cameroon: The Minister of Trade, Luc-Magloire Mbarga Atangana, has announced cuts to the price cement. He attributed this to a substantial increase in the production capacity of Mira SA’s plant to 1.5Mt/yr from 0.5Mt/yr, according to the Cameroon Tribune newspaper. Prices of some products have reportedly fallen by up to 12%.

US: Lehigh Hanson has secured US$3.7m-worth of funding from the US department of energy for its planned front-end engineering design (FEED) installation of a carbon capture system at its Mitchell cement plant in Indiana. The funding was part of a total US$31m pot awarded to 10 different carbon capture projects across multiple industries. All of the projects have the capacity to capture over 95% of emissions from their respective plants.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America is supplying its carbon capture system for use at the Mitchell cement plant, at a total project cost of US$4.8m.

Botswana: Keletsositse Olebile, the chief executive officer of the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre, hopes that the country could become a net exporter of cement in 2023. Olebile made the comment whilst on a tour of the Matsiloje integrated cement plant, according to the Weekend Post newspaper. The cement company was recently acquired by Whale Rock Cement, a Chinese joint-venture based in Namibia. At present the plant is producing 0.1Mt/yr and following a planned investment drive this may rise to 0.9Mt/yr. At present the country imports around 0.62Mt/yr of cement and it is hoped that expanding production at the Matsiloje plant could create the right conditions to create an export market. Matsiloje Portland Cement, the previous owners of the Matsiloje plant, closed in 2018 due to competition from South African imports.

Pakistan: Germany-based Menzel Elektromotoren has revealed work on a replacement motor it has built for an unnamed cement plant in Pakistan. As part of the project it has designed a motor to fit a limited installation space that could drive the unit’s raw mill, another cement mill or a fan.

The engineering company’s solution was a compact slip ring motor in frame size 710 with the cooling system tailored to fit around a steel girder in the cement plant. To accommodate the existing couplings in two different sizes, Menzel designed the replacement motor with two shaft ends with different diameters. The motor output is configured to ensure efficient continuous operation in each of the three applications. The machine has a rated output of 4600kW and a rated voltage of 6300V. It complies with protection class IP55. At the customer's request, it was designed in cooling type IC 666, with permanent external ventilation of the inner and outer cooling circuit. Before delivery, Menzel also ran a load test in its in-house test field with the end-user attending via video streaming.

South Korea: Ssangyong Cement has ordered equipment from Germany-based KHD Humboldt Wedag as part of an upgrade to clinker production line five of the Donghae plant. The scope of supply for the contract includes: a Pyroclon R type calciner with Pyrotop mixing chamber; a Pyrorotor type alternative fuel combustion reactor; a Pyrobox type coal firing system for process start-up and operation balancing; replacement of stage four cyclones with new high-efficiency cyclones for calciner connection and an overall pressure drop reduction; a new kiln inlet chamber with orifice, kiln hood and tertiary air ducts; and a new Pyrofloor PFC 738AW type cooler with a Pyrocrusher PRC 420-4ES.

This project will be the fourth Pyrorotor installation at the Donghae plant. KHD’s scope includes the engineering and supply of mechanical equipment for the clinker production as well as electrical equipment for the overall modernisation of the production process. The project scope is the same as the modernisation contract of line four of Donghae plant, which was signed in February 2021 and currently is in commissioning. The commissioning of the modernised line five is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2023.

India: UltraTech Cement has commissioned a 1.3Mt/yr upgrade at its Dalla plant in Uttar Pradesh. Following the work the plant now has a total cement production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr. The cement producer said that the project was the first part of a capacity expansion drive previously announced in late 2020. It added that with this latest upgrade its total cement production capacity in India is just under 116Mt/yr.

Jamaica: Mexico-based Cemex plans to expand production by up to 30% at its integrated Rockfort cement plant near Kingston. The first phase of the upgrade project will cost around US$40m and be completed during 2024. Cemex’s chief executive officer Fernando A Gonzalez made the announcement during a visit to the plant. Andrew Holness, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, also attended the event.

Gonzalez said “We are in the final stages of the engineering phase and in obtaining permits from the local authorities.” He added, “Very soon we will begin to procure the equipment needed for this initial phase of the project, designed to not only expand our capacity, but also allow us to optimise our heat consumption in the manufacturing process, and therefore, reduce the carbon footprint of our cement facility in Jamaica.”

The event also included the unveiling of a mural at the plant which commemorates the 60th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence. Titled ‘Reignited for Unity’, the mural measures around 15m tall by 50m wide. It was painted by Mexican artists Irving Cano and Freddie Herrera and Jamaican artists Anthony Smith, Yanque Yip and Jordan Harrison. The mural is part of a local government initiative to use art to promote different communities in Kingston.

South Korea: Halla Cement has awarded a supply and engineering contract to Germany-based KHD Humboldt Wedag for an upgrade of line 2 at Okke plant. KHD will supply a new Pyroclon R type calciner, with a Pyrotop type mixing chamber, and a 4.2m x 15m Pyrorotor type combustion reactor. Other equipment being provided includes: a Pyrobox type coal firing system for process start-up and operation balancing; replacement of stage five cyclones with new high-efficiency cyclones; and a new kiln inlet chamber with orifice. Erection and commissioning of the modernised production line is scheduled for the first quarter of 2024.

This latest project marks the second installation of a Pyrorotor at Halla Cement’s Okke plant. The installation of line 3 at the site is currently ongoing with commissioning scheduled for the first quarter of 2023. Overall, this will be KHD’s ninth installation of a Pyrorotor in South Korea.

The Pyrorotor has been promoted to cement plants as a way of using low-quality alternative fuels with minimal pre-processing. It offers a thermal substitution rate of over 85% and will also allow the Okke plant to reduce its NO_x emissions. The installation of the new Pyroclon R type calciner and the high-efficiency cyclones in the lowest preheater stages will also provide the production line with an increase in efficiency due to an overall pressure drop reduction in the entire preheater.