Argentina/Mexico/Spain: Holcim has appointed Pablo Bittar as the Country CEO of Argentina, Christian Dedeu as the Country CEO of Mexico and Ricardo de Pablos as the Country CEO of Spain. Dedeu succeeds Jaime Hill, who has become Region Head North America. Bittar succeeds Dedeu. De Pablos succeeds Carmen Díaz, who has been appointed as the Chief People Officer in Holcim Group.

Dedeu previously worked as the CEO for Holcim Argentina from 2020. Before this he was the Commercial Director for the company in the country. He originally started working for Holcim in Argentina in 2007 before moving to Holcim Costa Rica in 2016 where he eventually became Commercial Director (Central America). Earlier in his career he worked for ExxonMobil in Argentina from the late 1990s. He is a graduate from the University of El Salvador in Buenos Aires and holds a Master in Business Administration from the IAE Business School.

Bittar worked for Holcim Argentina from late 1990s until 2012, eventually becoming a Procurement Officer. He then worked for Holcim in Ecuador and Colombia becoming the Head of Supply Chain Latin America in 2023. Bittar is an qualified accountant from the National University of Córdoba with a master’s degree in business administration from the same institution.

De Pablos joined Holcim in 2005. He became Regional Director Aggregates in Spain in 2009, Director Mediterranean Area in Spain in 2012, Export Director in 2016 and Director of Business Development and Exports in 2022. Prior to working for Holcim he was a Senior Consultant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. De Pablos holds a degree in industrial engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and an executive degree in business administration from the IE Business School.

US: Ireland-based Ecocem has appointed Mike Donovan as Technical Director for its US business operations. He will be responsible for overseeing key aspects of Ecocem’s business in the US, with a focus on widespread commercial adoption of the company’s low-carbon cement technologies, including ACT, by the US market.

Donovan most recently developed and brought a new natural pozzolan to market with Geofortis. He started his career in concrete in the 1980s working at companies including as Sherman Industries, Blue Circle Cement Tarmac and Central Concrete Supply (US Concrete). He is a graduate in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

US: Eriez has appointed Todd Loudin as its Vice President of Global Sales.

Loudin holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business from Kent State University and an Executive Master in Business Administration from Loyola University Maryland. He worked as a General Manager for Larox in the 1990s and was on the Standards Committee for the International Society of Automation (ISA ANSI) in the 2000s and early 2010s. Later he became the head of Neles’ USA Flowrox business and its Head of Sales for the Americas in 2021.

Eriez is a specialises in separation technologies. It supplies products to the mining, food, recycling, packaging, aggregate sectors, and other processing industries. The company was established in in 1942 and has its headquarters in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Guatemala: Cemex has sold its operations in Guatemala to Holcim Group for US$200m. The deal includes one grinding mill, three ready-mix plants and five distribution centres. The grinding mill has a capacity of 0.6Mt/yr.

CEO of Cemex Fernando González said "In 2024, we have accelerated the execution of our portfolio rebalancing strategy with the announced sale of more than US$2bn in assets located primarily in emerging markets. We are now primed for the next stage by redeploying most of the divestment proceeds in developed markets, primarily the US. We expect these efforts to drive sustainable growth for our business in the short and medium term."

US: The Continental Cement Davenport plant in Buffalo, Iowa, has celebrated the expansion of its facility, which now enables the reuse of post-consumer materials. This initiative will substitute approximately 50,000t/yr of fossil fuels with discarded materials that would otherwise be incinerated or sent to landfill.

Pakistan: Maple Leaf Cement has reported a consolidated profit after tax of US$5.6m for the quarter ending June 2024, with sales revenue increasing by 5% to US$56.4m from US$53.8m year-on-year. The cost of sales dropped by 10%, boosting the gross profit by 44% year-on-year to US$21.7m.

Vietnam: Vietnam exported 2.3Mt of cement and clinker worth US$90m in August 2024, down by 17% and 23% year-on-year, respectively. From January to August 2024, exports totalled 20.5Mt valued at US$789m, marking declines of 4% in volume and 14% in value compared to the same period of 2023. In 2023, the country earned US$1.33bn from 31.4Mt of exports, a fall of 1% in volume and 4% in value year-on-year.

India: Residents near the proposed cement plant site in Garhshankar, Hoshiarpur district, are holding a public hearing on 11 September 2024, disputing the legitimacy of a previous meeting held by the Punjab Pollution Control Board and local authorities on 19 January 2024. The Vatavarn Bachao Sangharash Committee, representing 24 villages, claims the initial hearing was manipulated and poorly attended by local villagers.

Convener Tarsem Singh said "Three villages - Naryala, Sardullapur and Badhoaan - are in the immediate vicinity of the proposed plant. Around 30 villages are in its 5km radius. Representatives from these villages have already been holding meetings for eight months after we came to know about the proposal. We have also been sending representatives to authorities. Now our teams are visiting these villages daily to mobilise wider public participation, so that people can express their views."

Denmark: Denmark's first CO₂ storage facility is now ready to store CO₂ in the North Sea, designed for large-scale CO₂ containment to combat climate change, according to a press release from project leaders INEOS Denmark. The Project Greensand initiative has completed its pilot phase, confirming permanent CO₂ storage in the Nini West reservoir, 1800m below the seabed.

Following the pilot phase's success, the launch of large-scale CO₂ storage is expected by late 2025 or early 2026, with ambitions to store up to 8Mt/yr by 2030. An investigation is also underway to determine the possibility of storing CO₂ underground on land in Denmark, with the company obtaining an exploration licence from the Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities earlier in 2024 for an area of Jutland in the Gassum reservoir.

Country manager at INEOS Denmark and Commercial Director at INEOS Energy, Mads Gade said “We emphasised that Denmark has moved to the forefront of CCS in the world when we stored the first CO₂ in the North Sea. Now we are in the process of investigating how to take the next step, and here we stand on the shoulders of the invaluable experience from Project Greensand's pilot. We are keen to continue this momentum with an ambition that Greensand will be the first CO₂ storage facility in operation in the EU, and we are now awaiting the Danish authorities' approval of a permanent storage. This is an important step, because if Denmark takes just 5% of a future CCS market in Europe, it could mean up to 9000 jobs, with an economic potential of US$7.4bn. At the same time, we can support the EU's objectives, because we have all the prerequisites to create a new industry that is part of the solution to the challenges of the climate.”

India: Oriana Power subsidiary TrueRE Surya has won a contract to build a 128MW solar power plant in Tamil Nadu for Dalmia Cement (Bharat), supporting its target to use 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and become carbon negative by 2040.

The project cost approximately US$62m and will be commissioned within the next 12 months, according to Energetica India Magazine. As part of the contract, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) will acquire 26% of TrueRE Surya for US$5.3m, with the transaction finalising within four to six months.

Oriana Power Chief business officer Anirudh Saraswat said “We are also humbled by the trust posed in Oriana Power’s ability to execute mega solar projects by the largest companies and are equally excited to take another big step forward in helping India meet its renewable energy goals through this partnership.”