10 July 2018

France: LafargeHolcim France is spending Euro3.5m on upgrades to its Dunkirk grinding plant. Construction started in late May 2018 on the project and commissioning is scheduled for early 2019. The new equipment is intended to increase the unit’s production capacity. The upgrade at the site is part of the company’s Euro300m investment plan that was announced in 2016.

Germany: HeidelbergCement has highlighted occupational safety and research into CO₂ reduction as priorities in its sustainability report for 2017. It reduced its accident frequency rate for employees with at least one lost working day per 1,000,000 hours across cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates to 1.8 in 2017 from 2.2 in 2016.

“This represents a significant improvement. A large number of locations have now been accident-free for several years, while others have seen drastically reduced accident rates. Nevertheless, serious accidents still occurred in 2017. We will therefore further intensify our efforts to prevent accidents on a permanent basis,” said Bernd Scheifele, the chairman of HeidelbergCement.

The building materials producer has also singled out its commitment to reduce its specific CO₂ emissions by 30% in 2030 compared with 1990. It plans to support this by continually increasing the proportion of alternative raw materials and fuels and, wherever possible, to make its production processes more efficient. In addition, HeidelbergCement has invested in research programmes on carbon capture and its utilisation as a raw material. In 2017, it spent Euro141m on research and technology, an increase of around Euro24m from 2016.

Following HeidelbergCement’s acquisition of Italcementi in 2016 its CO₂ emissions have increased. Its specific net CO₂ emissions (per tonne of cementitious material) rose by 1.9% year-on-year to 609kg Co₂/t in 2017 from 598 kg Co₂/t in 2016. Its overall proportion of alternative fuels has also decreased slightly dropping to 20.8% from 21.4%. However, its specific energy consumption for cement and clinker continued to fall in 2017.

Qatar: Qatar National Cement has signed a provisional acceptance certificate with France’s Fives for the construction of new production line at the Umm Bab plant. The new 5000t/day line is the fifth at the site. It covers the whole equipment from the raw material preparation to the cement dispatch. Previously Fives and Qatar National Cement collaborated on lines two, three and four at Umm Bab.

Indonesia: Holcim Indonesia has refused to comment on local media stories that its parent company, LafargeHolcim, is planning to sell it. Both Kontan and CNBC Indonesia have reported that LafargeHolcim is looking for buyers for its subsidiary as part of its global divestment scheme. LafargeHolcim owns an 80% share in Holcim Indonesia.

Burkina Faso: A new cement plant project being built in Bobo-Dioulasso has drawn complaints from local residents and businesses. The unit is being built in an agricultural indstury section of the city and local companies fear that dust from plant might damage their products, according to the Le Pays newspaper. Food from the region is exported to Europe. Morocco’s Ciments de l'Afrique (CIMAF) announced that it had started building a grinding plant in Bobo-Dioulasso in mid-2016.

China: Anhui Conch expects that its profit will double year-on-year for the first half of 2018. The company reported an unaudited net profit of US$1.01bn in the first half of 2017. It has attributed the growth in profit to a ‘significant’ increase in the price of its products and an increase in revenue. The cement producer plans to release its half year report by the end of August 2018.