China: Anhui Conch has spent over US$7.9m on a 50,000t CO₂ capture and purification pilot project at its Baimashan cement plant in Anhui province. The unit is scheduled to start operation in the first half of 2018. The group has started the project in order to participate in the government’s ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ CO₂ emission reduction initiative.

Philippines: Phinma Group has returned to the cement industry bringing its ‘Union Cement’ brand back to the market. Its cement production subsidiary, Philcement, is also building a new 2Mt/yr cement plant in Bataan, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper. The new plant is expected to be operational in early 2019. No cost for the plant has been disclosed.

Phinma sold its majority interest in Union Cement in 2004 and the business eventually became part of Switerland’s Holcim. However, Phinma subsequently required the Union Cement trademark after Holcim Philippines abandoned it.

The cement producer’s head is Eduardo Sahagun, the former boss of Holcim Philippines from 2013 to 2017. At present Philcement is distributing cement from third parties.

Niger: Nouvelle Cimenterie de Niger (NCN) plans to start operation at its new US$90m integrated cement plant at Malbaza. Minister of Industry M Mallam Zaneidou Amirou visited the site to assess its progress, according to the Niger Inter Media Group. Work on the unit started in mid-2011 but was subsequently abandoned.

Egypt: Titan Cement Egypt is planning to spend US$8m towards building a 8MW solar power plant next to its Beni Suef cement plant. Surplus energy from the unit will be sold to the national grid, according to the Al Borsa newspaper. The project is at the bidding stage with contractors but the cement producer is believed to be in ‘advanced talks’ KarmSolar.

US: Cemex has settled a lawsuit that accused it of discharging polluted storm water runoff from its West Sacramento cement terminal in California into the Sacramento River. The cement producer has agreed to implement an infiltration basin to treat runoff from its unit, according to the Sacramento Business Journal newspaper. It will also make a donation of US$40,000 in grants to environmental projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. The alliance had originally sought US$88m from Cemex.

Germany: Schade Lagertechnik has achieved re-accreditation under the international quality management system ISO 9001, as well as under the environmental standard ISO 14001 and the occupational health and safety standard OHSAS 18001. The audit was carried out by TÜV Hessen and completes Schade’s transition to the 2015 standard for quality and environmental management.

China: Anhui Conch’s sales revenue grew by 35% year-on-year to US$11.9bn in 2017 from US$8.85bn in 2016. Its net profit nearly doubled to US$2.51bn from US$1.36bn. The cement producer said that it had, ‘seized the favourable opportunities arising from the state’s further deepening of supply-side structural reform and the promotion of off-peak season production.’

During the year Anhui Conch opened eight cement grinding plants including Quanjiao Conch Cement, Anhui Xuancheng Conch Cement and Nantong Conch Cement. Outside of China the company completed phase two of its Merak grinding plant in Indonesia and started cement production and completed construction of the North Sulawesi Conch plant in Indonesia and the Battambang Conch plant in Cambodia. The units in Indonesia and Cambodia are due to start production in 2018. A new plant, Luang Prabang Conch, is being built in Laos and preliminary work on projects at Volga Conch in Russia, Vientiane in Laos and Mandalay in Myanmar is underway. At the end of 2017 Anhui Conch says it has a clinker and cement production capacity of 246t/yr and 335Mt/yr respectively.

The cement producer also announced that its Baimashan Cement plant was intending to start operating a CO₂ collection and purification pilot project in the first half of 2018. The initiative is part of the group’s moves to implement the government’s low-carbon development strategy.

China: Tianrui Cement grew in sales revenue in 2017 due to higher sales prices. However, its sales volumes of cement fell slightly to 29.3Mt in 2017 from 29.5Mt in 2016. This followed government mandated supply side reform and environmental measures such as production suspension. Its sales revenue rose by 40% year-on-year to US$1.33bn from US$950m. Its profit nearly tripled to US$157m from US$39.5m.

The cement producer added that by the end of 2017 all of its clinker production lines were equipped with denitrification systems and bag filters. These upgrades brought the concentration of emitted nitrogen oxides and particulates below the national pollutant emission standards and the concentration of emitted sulphur dioxide also met national standards.

It also completed its acquisitions of majority stakes in Henan Yongan Cement and Tianrui Xindeng Zhengzhou Cement.

Indonesia: Indocement’s sales revenue fell by 6% year-on-year to US$1.01bn in 2017 from US$1.12bn in 2016. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement saw its operating income fall by nearly half to US$131m from US$255m. In HeidelbergCement’s annual report it said that, although cement and clinker sales grew by 5.5% in 2017, prices fell due to excess production capacity.

Ivory Coast/Senegal: The West African Development Bank (Board) has approved loans for cement plant projects in Ivory Coast and Senegal. It will give US$47m to Ciments Du Sahel for it to build a third clinker production line at its plant in Kirène. The new line will have a production capacity of 2.7Mt/yr. It has also approved a loan of US$9.4m for Ciments de Côte d’Ivoire (Cimivoire) to build a new 3Mt/yr cement grinding plant in Abidjan.