24 July 2018

India: ACC’s net sales rose by 14% year-on-year to US$1.06bn in the first half of 2018 from US$934m in the same period in 2017. Its net profit after tax rose by 8% to US$125m from US$108m. Its sales volumes of cement increased by 8% to 14.4Mt from 13.3Mt.

Neeraj Akhoury, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of ACC, said that input prices, such as fuel and slag, and logistics costs were continuing to mount. However, the company has made operational and productivity efficiencies that had partly offset this.

Qatar: Qatar National Cement’s sales revenue dropped by 21.9% year-on-year to US$119m in first half of 2018 from US$153m in the same period in 2017. Its net profit rose slightly to US$46.2m, according to the Qatar Tribune newspaper.

Italy: Italcementi plans to keep the Arquata Scrivia grinding plant open. The assurance was given to union representatives following worker redundancies at the unit, according to Alessandria News. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement competed its purchase of the plant from Cementir Italia in January 2018. It has since been rebranded under the Cemitaly brand.

Germany: Hermann Trollius has purchased a used MPS 125 A type mill as part of a capacity expansion and has additionally ordered a selection of new equipment from Gebr. Pfeiffer. The company operates a lime and crushed stone works at Lauterhofen in Bavaria. It produces limestone and dolomite for use in the building, steel, glass, sugar and animal feed industries, as well as for agricultural applications.

Gebr. Pfeiffer will assist Hermann Trollius in setting up the entire grinding plant, taking maintenance measures on the MPS mill and coordinating the delivery of the additional plant equipment. Two distribution table SUT 2800 type separators will be supplied by Gebr. Pfeiffer along with a TRT Triplex dryer with a length of 3.15m and a diameter of 2000mm to be used for drying dolomite, which has a moisture of 4 - 11%. The dryer will have a new hot gas generator of the type HMG 900 for natural gas firing. The hot gas generator to be used for the mill will be of the HMG 800 type.

The new machines will be on the site in early November 2018 so that the customer’s new plant will go online in early 2019 at the latest.