US: Lehigh Cement’s Mason City cement plant in Iowa has transitioned to Portland limestone cement (PLC) production. The plant will produce the company’s EcoCem brand PLC. It previously launched the cement in Canada in February 2021.

US: Ash Grove Cement has re-opened its Port Manatee terminal in Florida following the installation of a new Kovako type ship unloader supplied by FLSmidth. The machine was custom built for Ash Grove by the Denmark-based company to meet its specific needs. The cement producer says it is the largest mobile pneumatic ship unloader built, has twin 800hp blowers, 37m suction arm and can offload a dry bulk vessel at a high rate while maintaining maximum efficiency and minimising environmental impact by eliminating dust emissions.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the event was held on 7 February 2022 as a shipment of fly ash was processed at the site. This maiden shipment completes the Phase 1 transformation project at Port Manatee, which began in early 2021. The project is intended to improve the subsidiary of CRH’s capacity to import cement, slag and fly ash for customers in Florida and South Georgia. It is also planning to use the terminal’s existing silo capacity to complement the capabilities of Ash Grove’s cement plants in Sumterville and Branford.

Canada: TransAlta Corporation has secured a contract to supply 100Gwh/yr of wind power to Lafarge Canada’s Exshaw, Alberta. The power will cover an estimated 25% of the plant’s electricity needs.

Lafarge Western Canada’s head of sustainability and environment Cailee Ellis said “This agreement, first of its kind for Lafarge in Alberta, is an important step to utilising higher amounts of renewable electricity at our facilities.”

Togo: Cimenterie de la Côte ouest-africaine’s (CimCo) new 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant in Lomé is preparing to produce its first cement in March 2022. Germany-based Intercem Engineering says that construction work has been completed on the project and that the cladding is in place. Currently, the cold commissioning is in progress. The plant will operate as a subsidiary of CimMetal Group.

Kenya: Bamburi Cement has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Momnai Energy to set up two solar plants. One 14.5MW unit will be situated next to its integrated Mombasa plant and the other 5MW unit by its Nairobi grinding plant. This will account for up to approximately 40% of the cement producer’s total power supply. Construction of the solar power plants is scheduled to begin end of 2022, after requisite regulatory approvals with expected completion within a year.

“We are elated to be making this step towards switching to more affordable and clean energy that will not only lead to a significant reduction in power costs but also bring us closer to our goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions,” said Miriam Ngolo, Bamburi Cement’s Strategy and Business Development Director.

Other recent sustainability work by the subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim has included substituting heavy fuels with alternative fuels like biomass, including rice husks, and other waste material such as waste tyres and waste oil in its operations.

Colombia: Cement production grew by 16% year-on-year to 13.8Mt in 2021 from 11.8Mt in 2020. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics authority reports that despatches rose by a similar rate to 13.0Mt from 11.2Mt.

Colombia: Cemex Colombia has recorded accumulated sales of 500,000m3 of its Vertua reduced-CO₂ concrete. It aims to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050.

President Alejandro Ramírez said “Our Vertua concrete sales volume is excellent news for the country. It demonstrates that a sustainable vision of construction is being consolidated in Colombia, conscious of its decisive contribution to global climate action.”

Saudi Arabia: Qanbar Ready Mix has run its first trial mix of concrete using Canada-based CarbonCure’s CO2 utilisation technology. The Eastern Province-based ready-mixed concrete producer conducted a full-scale plant trial in late December 2021 in Ras Al Khair Industrial City, according to Gulf Construction. Employees, customers from Saudi Aramco and engineers were present at the event. Concrete supplied from Qanbar Ready Mix’s batching plants will be used to supply projects at the King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services.

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement recorded consolidated sales of US$4.57bn in the first nine months of the 2022 financial year, down by 24% year-on-year from US$5.65bn in the corresponding period of the 2021 financial year. The group’s net profit in the period was US$256m, down by 20% year-on-year from US$322m. Dow Jones Institutional Newswires has reported that the producer forecast full-year sales in the 2022 financial year of US$6.15bn and a net profit of US$294m.

Honduras: HN Ingenieros has commissioned a new kiln line at a cement plant in Honduras. The supplier says that the line had previously been inactive since 2002, and is now the country’s largest.