03 April 2018

US: Italy’s Cementir Holding has completed its acquisition of an additional 38.75% of Lehigh White Cement. It paid US$107m for the purchase. Following the deal Cementir holds a 63.25% stake in Lehigh White Cement and Cemex holds the remaining 36.75%. Cementir said that the acquisition would allow it to directly manage assets in the US in the core white cement business.

US: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded CalPortland the 2018 Energy Star Partner of the Year Sustained Excellence Award for continued leadership and superior contributions to Energy Star. CalPortland’s accomplishments will be recognized by the EPA and the Department of Energy at a ceremony in Washington, DC on 20 April 2018.

Its key accomplishments in 2017 include: promoting energy management across the US cement industry through the chief executive officer’s leadership of a trade association and an offer of the company’s assistance to others in the industry; earning the EPA’s Energy Star plant certification for two cement plants where one was recently purchased and required extensive upgrades and energy improvements to qualify in less than two years; and continuing to invest in operations through new plant hardware such as a high efficiency separator for a mill, efficient new equipment to improve raw feed processing, and computational fluid dynamic software to better manage process air and material flows. The company also developed innovative methods for training employees and motivating them to manage energy in their work. In its outreach work it informed employees and over 106,000 community members and schools, competitors and others about energy management and the Energy Star program.