11 June 2020

South Korea: All nine domestic cement producers and the Ministry of Environment have agreed on measures to reduce NO_x emissions. Asia Cement, Halla Cement, Hanil Cement Manufacturing, Hyundai Cement, Korea Cement, Sampyo Cement, Ssangyong Cement Industrial, SungShin Cement and Union Corporation have agreed to invest in upgrades to filters or new high-efficiency filters and process improvements, according to the Korea Times newspaper. There was also an agreement to set NO_x emissions reduction targets for the allocation of funding. The Korea Environmental Industry Technology Institute is investing US$2.93m in research towards developing methods of selective catalytic NO_x emissions reduction and selective non-catalytic NO_x emissions reduction.

The government aims to reduce national NO_x emissions by 20% to 155,000t/yr from 195,000t/yr through subsidies to emissions reduction technologies development and uptake. The cement sector presently emits 62,500t, 32% of the domestic total.

Puerto Rico: Cement companies produced 43,900t of cement in May 2020, up by 2.5% year-on-year from 42,800t in May 2019. M-Brain News has reported that sales rose by 2.1% to 52,800t from 51,700t.

US: Solidia Technologies has filed a patent for a new hydraulic cement consisting of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and other supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) including lime, alkali hydroxides, clay minerals and over 10% synthetic pozzolan.

Solidia Technologies said, “In order to reduce global CO₂ emissions it is necessary to adopt new approaches to create a new generation of hydraulic cements. The most efficient cement kiln can produce OPC clinker with an associated emission of 816 kg of CO₂/t. Blending the ground cement clinker with SCM, which have low or zero associated production CO2 emissions, reduces the total embodied CO₂ of the final product. Using a cement with the lowest possible clinker factor for a given application is the most common industry approach to reducing the CO₂ footprint of concrete.”

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement recorded earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$23.9m in 2019, up by 12% year-on-year from US$21.4m in 2018. Sales volumes of cement remained stable at 1.7Mt with local sales increasing by 4% and exports decreasing by 29% due to increased competition and negative currency effects. Steppe Cement said that overall domestic demand was 8.9Mt, up by 2% from 8.7Mt in 2018. The company operated at 88% production capacity and production costs per tonne rose by 10% due to increases in fuel and transportation prices.

Finland: Lujabetoni says it has begun work on a new 80 - 100m3/hr ready-mix concrete plant in Kuopio, Northern Savonia to replace its existing plant in the town. The new unit, which will serve construction projects throughout the region, will have an improved raw materials heating system. The plant is scheduled for completion in late 2020 or early 2021.