10 October 2023

US: Ash Grove Cement plans to build a new cement mill at its cement plant in Durkee, Oregon. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024. The upgrade is intended to allow the plant to manufacture low-carbon cement products.

Serge Schmidt, the president of Ash Grove Cement, said "The transition to low carbon cement production and reducing our environmental footprint is a top priority for Ash Grove Cement. We are always seeking new ways to improve our sustainability performance while providing high-quality cement solutions to our customers. This state-of-the-art finish mill at our Durkee plant will strengthen Ash Grove's position as a leader in low-carbon cement across the Western US."

Australia: Boral has been halting production at its various production plants when the cost of electricity becomes too high. “At a certain point during the day, when the price goes up to a certain level, our manufacturing stops,” Chief executive officer Vik Bansal told the Australian Financial Review energy and climate summit. He added that the company had assessed that it was cheaper to have “thousands of people waiting idle for the prices to come down than actually do the work.” Additional reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper revealed that Boral’s staff had been working overtime and in night shifts to manage energy costs and to maintain the supply of building material products to its customers. Bansal told the summit that the company’s electricity costs rose by 54% in the 12 months to the end of June 2023.

However, Bansal was not clear whether all or just some of Boral’s plants have been stopping production temporarily due to peak daily electricity prices. The company produces cement, lime, concrete, asphalt and aggregates at 360 locations.

Boral has signed a fixed-price, 10-year power purchase agreement that will cover 19% of its renewable electricity needs to 2035, but is reportedly struggling to find other cost-effective options. In August 2023 it also reduced its emissions reduction target to 2025 from 2019 figures to up to 14% from 19% previously. It blamed this on “external factors” such as delays in securing the required regulatory approvals for the next phases of an alternative fuel program.

Australia: Cement Australia has signed a new three-year rail haulage agreement with Pacific National to transport shipping containers of cement, sand, fly ash, slag and lime. This will also includes the interstate and inter-city transport of cement and supplementary cementitious materials between large cities and throughout North Queensland. Cement Australia and Pacific National have a partnership that dates back over five years.

Pacific National is Australia’s largest private rail freight operator.

Algeria: Amouda Cement plans to start exporting cement to the European Union (EU) by end of 2023. It obtained a certificate of conformity to EU standards in March 2023, according to the Algeria Press Service. Djarmoun Fatimé, the cement producer’s Marketing and Communications Director, made the announcement at the Batiwest 2023 trade show taking place in Oran. The company has exported nearly 200,000t of cement and clinker to Mali and Niger since 2021. It is also hoping to target countries in West Africa such as Mauritania and Senegal.

The company operates a 2.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant with two production lines at El Beïda in Laghouat province.

India: JK Cement has agreed a partnership with Vakrangee to sell cement through the Vakrangee Kendra network. The franchise provides a range of services including banking, insurance, commerce and government services from over 21,000 locations in 32 states and union territories. Many of the outlets provide digital services in so-called ‘underserved’ rural, semi-urban and urban locales.

Croatia: Nexe Group has ordered a suite of software products from US-based Rockwell Automation to digitise production processes, reduce energy usage and increase production. It will use the FactoryTalk Analytics Pavilion8 software together with performance-management dashboards based on the ThingWorx IIoT platform, part of the FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, supplied by PTC

The software architecture to be deployed at Nexe was formulated by data science teams from Rockwell Automation and subsidiary Kalypso. The Pavilion8 model predictive control (MPC) product sits on top of automation systems and continuously assesses current and predicted operational data. It then compares this data to desired results, and drives new control targets to reduce process variability, improve performance and boost efficiency.

Danijel Koren, plant manager at Nexe’s integrated cement plant at Našice said “This is a push forward on this important journey for the whole group. We are looking to link all systems together and put operational data in the hands of people who can make a difference. Early results point to real success in terms of savings and efficiency; indeed, we are predicting a payback period of less than a year.”