I was recently in conversation with one of the delegates at the wear and maintenance conference in Ankara, and the slightly bizarre topic of whether or not it was possible to have a favourite cement plant came up. The gentleman I was speaking with was a product specialist for an Indian cement services company and had visited around 80% of India's cement plants. Before he named any plants, I asked him what his criteria would be for naming his favorite plants. "Well," he said, "I guess it would start off with being a clean plant, one that is well-maintained, one with a nice simple layout, not built higgledy-piggledy. Yes that would be a good plant."
Having said that, he went on to name plants owned by Ultratech and ACC as those that were among his favourites. He then added that these plants also had the benefits of being amongst the most efficient in the world as well. What has struck me over the years is that the level of education of Indian engineers is high and the cost of manpower is low: couple these factors with a willingness to experiment and innovate (and high cement prices and profits, for a number of reasons) and you have the perfect recipe for highly optimised and efficient plants.
Hmmm....which plants would I include on my own list of favourite cement plants?
Well, I have to say that some of the North American cement plants are very memorable. The Mojave plant of California Portland Cement is very energy efficient, but is also situated in a spectacular location in the high desert of southern California, while the Permanente cement plant near Cupertino (not far from San Francisco) sits atop a major fault zone and is appropriately well-reinforced. It's usually the case that the American and Canadian cement plants are well-run, that they give you a friendly welcome, and that there is a delicious mom-and-pop diner nearby... always a strong point in a plant's favour. Cement plant memories from Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Dakota (and down to Mexico too) are all 'flavoured' with recollections of delicious cement-plant related meals. The beans in Saltillo..... wow!
One of the things that I have always enjoyed about cement plants in south east Asia is that they often have an 'in-house' guest house, to accommodate visitors. Given that some of these plants can be quite isolated, it's just as well. I have always enjoyed the home touches that are added to these places to make weary travellers feel at home, a long way from home. For some reason, the Asian cement plants also take an inordinate amount of effort to beautify their plants, practically making them into botanical gardens, with box hedging and water features. This is practical when manpower is very cheap, but they don't need to do it: they like going to work in a place that looks good (or as good as it can look with a giant factory in the background). Of course the Thai plants around Saraburi are not only graced with comfortable guest houses and pleasant gardens, but the plants themselves also benefit from an impressive scale. As Joseph Stalin once said, "Quantity has a quality all of its own."
One plant I visited in east Africa was memorable for the wrong reason: there was six inches of cement dust lying everywhere in the plant. I shudder to think what would happen if it ever rained. The plant was memorable, perhaps, but it's not on my list of favourites.
The Japanese cement plants that I have visited were of very impressive scale and boasted not only high technology, but also some innovative environmental thinking. One plant derived a high proportion of its calorific value from comminuted pachinko machines (which are like pinball machines but vertical and with smaller balls). However, to be honest, the most memorable thing I recall from visiting the Japanese cement plants was the ultra-comfortable toilets, which each boasted a touch-sensitive control pad, temperature-controllable water jets and warming air jets for maximum comfort. They even - if my memory serves me correctly, included an in-built radio. This was a decade ago: I wonder what technological wonders are inbuilt nowadays. Certainly internet access: YouTube and Facebook as well?
As they say, your first time is your most memorable, and that's also true for me: Pretoria Portland Cement's Slurry cement plant in South Africa's North West Province was a fine location for me to lose my 'cement plant virginity.' Cuban cement industry centenary celebrations led to a memorable trip featuring a great lobster meal.
However, highest on my list of favourite cement plants would have to be Cementos Chimborazo, in Ecuador, a plant that I visited with my wife while we were on our honeymoon, 13 long years ago. They made us feel very welcome, showed us everything we (I) wanted to see, and then lent us a pickup truck and a driver for a half day, which we used to drive to a mountain refuge high on the volcano of Chimborazo. My wife said that the cup of tea and chocolate bar that we consumed high on the mountain that day was the high point of our entire honeymoon. Aah, happy days!
