Canada: Svante has raised US$75m in an investment round. The financing was led by Temasek and includes strategic investors Chart Industries, Carbon Direct and Export Development Canada (EDC). Existing investors OGCI Climate Investments, BDC Cleantech Practice, Chevron Technology Ventures, The Roda Group and Chrysalix Venture Capital also participated in the round.

The investment gives the company will allow the company to advance a number of initiatives over the next three years, including work to support several commercial scale carbon capture facilities to address hard-to-abate emissions from industrial operations such as cement manufacturing, blue hydrogen production and natural gas boilers. Svante has now attracted more than US$150m in funding since it was founded in 2007 to develop and commercialise its solid sorbent technology.

“Lowering the capital cost of the capture of the CO₂ emitted in industrial production is critical to the world’s net-zero carbon goals required to stabilize the climate. Leaders from industry, financial sectors and government agree on the enormity of the challenge and the critical need to deploy carbon capture and carbon removal solutions at Gigatons scale. The carbon pulled from earth as fossil fuel needs to go back into the earth in safe CO₂ storage,” said Claude Letourneau, President CEO of Svante.

Mexico: The Mexican Association of the Ready-Mix Concrete Industry (AMIC) has joined the National Cement Chamber (CANACEM). Jaime Rocha Font, president of CANACEM, said that the inclusion of AMIC would better reflect the cement and concrete sector and aid its work with regulators, according to the El Sol de Mexico newspaper. AMIC was created in 1958 and brings together 42 ready-mix concrete production companies that operate 410 concrete plants and represent 70% of local concrete production.

Oman: Switzerland-based ABB has completed a digital systems overhaul at Oman Cement Company’s (OCC) Muscat cement plant. The supplier says that by integrating the plant’s three production lines with its ABB Ability System 800xA product it will optimise performance across the lines, boosting operational efficiency, increasing availability, lowering costs and driving sustainability. It says that it has also replaced older controllers in their final lifecycle phase with AC800M models. Teams from OCC and ABB collaborated to complete the engineering, supply, installation and commissioning of the ABB systems.

OCC head of instrumentation and control Bashar Al Farsi said, “Cement production is a core industry for Oman, serving and enabling a self-sufficient construction industry. With the long-term support of ABB we have added to this strength and look forward to continued success, now with the latest digital control system across our three process lines. We have already identified time and cost savings, and will drive towards greater efficiencies and sustainability targets as we aim to be the number one cement manufacturing company in the Sultanate.”

OCC has been a customer of ABB since 1978.

Germany: Holcim Deutschland has signed a contract supplying its Lägerdorf and Höver integrated cement plants with 30,000MWh of offshore wind power. The electricity will be supplied by Ane Energy from a number of wind farms.

Poland: HeildelbergCement subsidiary Górażdże Group has signed a 10-year corporate Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with BayRa to buy electricity from the forthcoming Witnica solar power plant. The project is the first subsidy-free PPA-backed large-scale solar park in Poland. Due for completion in the first half of 2021, the solar park will be the largest in Poland, with a capacity of 64.6MWp.

“Here is the ultimate proof that photovoltaic power can – without any subsidies - be competitive to conventional energies, even in a European country further north, which still generates 80% of its electricity from coal,” said Benedikt Ortmann, Global Director of Solar Projects at BayWa. Andrea Grotzke, Global Director of Energy Solutions at BayWa added, “This PPA serves as an economic structure for a fixed price hedge against rising electricity costs. Securing energy from solar not only reduces a company’s CO₂ footprint. We are convinced that it also results in significant savings on the corporate energy bill.” BayWa has set the goal of constructing solar and wind projects in Poland with a total installed capacity of more than 1GW by the mid-2020s.

Spain: A regional court has ruled in favour of Cementos Cosmos in a case brought by local environmental group Bierzo Aire Limpio. The protestors alleged that the company had violated regulations at its Toral de los Vados cement plant in El Bierzo, León. The court ruled that the producer had acted correctly and in continuous communication with the administration.

Peru: Unión Andina de Cementos’ (UNACEM) income fell by 14% year-on-year to US$467m in 2020 from US$546m in 2019. Cement despatches dropped by 16% to 4.46Mt from 5.32Mt. Its profit decreased to US$8.33m from US$96m. The cement producer attributed the reduction in sales and profits due to the country’s coronavirus-related lockdown from March to May 2020. In December 2020 it agreed to buy Chile-based Cementos La Unión Chile for US$23m. The deal includes the 0.3Mt/yr San Antonio grinding plant and a concrete plant.

Brazil: Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN) subsidiary CSN Cimentos began operating as an independent company on 1 February 2021. The Valor Economico newspaper has reported that the move is a preliminary to a likely future initial public offering (IPO) in the near-term although no date has been set yet. Under the same strategy, sister company CSN Mineracao is due to launch its IPO of US$1bn on 18 February 2021.

The 4.7Mt/yr-cement capacity producer operates two integrated plants and it is planning an 8.6Mt/yr expansion consisting of an upgrade to its Arcos plant and three new cement plants at Para, Parana and Sergipe respectively.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos is testing using dissolvable cement bags in a pilot project with paper and bag manufacturer Klabin. Following development, the new bag type will be tested in a pilot project in the south of the country based around the Rio Branco do Sul cement plant in Paraná state. The bags can be dissolved directly in a mixer when making concrete to speed up the process.

Russia: Eurocement has won a tender to supply up to 150,000t of cement to PIK Group. Its Voronezh and Mikhailovcement plants will supply CEM I and CEM II products respectively. PIK Group is one of the largest residential building companies in Russia. Eurocement said that the contract is one of the largest direct contracts it has signed and that it would ensure production in the first half of 2021.