Articles on the cement industry from Global Cement

The Hanson Ketton cement plant in Rutland, UK is the company’s main supplier of cement into the busy London and South East region of the UK. The plant was constructed in 1928 and began production in 1929. It has since undergone a series of expansions and upgrades, most recently with the installation of a Polysius kiln (No. 8) in 1986. Despite having to mothball its Kiln 7 in 2008 due to market conditions, the company continues to invest heavily in the plant, with major environmental, efficiency and quarry projects ongoing and planned for the coming years.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is located in the west of Asia and shares borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It covers a total of 1.65 million km², has 82.8 million inhabitants and has the eighth-largest cement sector in the world, according to active capacity listed in the Global Cement Directory 2017. It was previously as high as fourth-largest in 2014/2015, and is aiming to improve its ranking in the near future.

Once the epitome of the rapidly-rising BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China), Brazil’s economy and cement sector have taken a massive knock since 2008. This has been due to the global economic downturn exacerbated by the country’s reliance on mineral exports and accompanying political upheaval. Here we look at the country’s cement producers, recent production and consumption trends, recent news events and sector outlook.

In this article each cement burner OEM was given the opportunity to present the main features of its burners as well as provide insight into design concepts and their evolution. The emphasis is on the latest offering of each OEM, even though several still sell burners from previous generations. As not all OEMs responded, the excersise has been completed using information found in the available literature. For more information on the evolution of burner design trends, see the February 2017 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

The Iberian Peninsula is located in the south west corner of mainland Europe. Around 85% of its land is occupied by Spain, with smaller Portugal occupying around 15% in the far south west. Andorra, France and Gibraltar (UK) also occupy very small areas. Spain has the largest population, economy and cement sector in the region, with Portugal operating a far smaller cement sector. Here, we discuss the main players, trends and prospects of these two national industries ahead of the Global CemFuels Conference, which takes place in Barcelona, Spain on 1 - 4 February 2017.