Displaying items by tag: Alabama

US: National Cement has broken ground on its US$250m upgrade to the Ragland plant in Alabama. City, county and state officials attended the ceremony, according to WBRC. The subsidiary of France’s Vicat is building a second kiln at its 1.9Mt/yr plant in Alabama. The project is expected to be completed in 2022.

US: Allied Minerals has completed a US$11m upgrade to its Pell City plant in Alabama. The refractories manufacturer has been working on the project since mid-2018. The company originally operated two sites in Alabama at Anniston and Pell City. After it purchased Riverside Refractories in 2017 it decided to focus on the Pell City unit.

US: Mississippi Lime has completed its acquisition of Southern Lime, the lime business of Covia based in Calera, Alabama. The purchase increases Mississippi Lime’s production facilities to nine locations, supported by a network of distribution sites throughout the country. The Southern Lime business and its Calera plant will be fully integrated into Mississippi Lime. No value for the transaction was disclosed.

US: National Cement is tendering for a new 5000t/day production line at its Ragland plant in Alabama. The subsidiary of France’s Vicat has reportedly had a permit for the upgrade since 2006. The plant operates one dry process kiln with a production capacity of 1.9Mt/yr.

US: Apparent cement consumption grew by 3% year-on-year to 100Mt in 2018 from 97.4Mt in 2017, according to estimates from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Production of Ordinary Portland Cement and masonry cement rose by 2% to 87.8Mt from 86.1Mt. Imports of cement increased by 14% to 14Mt from 12.3Mt. Texas, California, Missouri, Florida, and Alabama were, in descending order of production, the five leading cement-producing states and accounted for nearly 50% of US production.

The USGS said that construction spending increased ‘modestly’ during the year, largely owing to somewhat higher spending in the residential and public construction sectors. The non-residential private building sector declined slightly. The leading cement-consuming states continued to be Texas, California, and Florida. Production of cement remained below capacity, in part reflecting both the technical and environmental issues in returning long-idle kilns to full production at some plants, and the availability of imported cement in coastal markets.

US: LafargeHolcim has received American Petroleum Institute (API) certification to produce oil well cement at its Holcim Theodore plant in Alabama plant. It says it is one of only four cement plants in the country with an API 10A Monogram and Q1 Quality Management System. Production of Class A oil well cement will start immediately at the site and the company plans to add Class H production in the future.

In order to earn the certification, LafargeHolcim spent more than a year in a process of investing in additional testing equipment, developing a quality management system, conducting internal audits and passing an audit by the API. Oil well cement is designed to meet demanding requirements. It is continuously tested for chemistry, thickening time, fluid loss, free fluid, rheology and compressive strength.

Production at the company’s Theodore plant will complement LafargeHolcim’s ability to maintain a consistent supply of oil well cement to customers in the Gulf region and beyond. The company also produces API A and H well cements at its Joppa cement plant in Illinois.

US: FCT Combustion has reported service updates to its clients in Ecuador, the US and Canada.

Hormicreto in Cuenca, Ecuador is preparing for commissioning of its G-Jet Hot Gas Generator for alternative liquid fuels firing, with a thermal capacity of 5.2MW. The system will provide hot air for the raw and cement swing mill application. FCT is responsible for the complete supply from the waste oil tank to the hot gas generator. Hormicreto is also commissioning a new riser duct natural gas firing system. FCT has also supplied two K-Jet Calciner Burners at the riser.

The Lehigh Cement Leeds plant in Alabama, US has awarded FCT with a new contract for a natural gas firing system for their riser duct. The system, rated at 30MW, will consist of a NPFA 86 Valve Train and K-JetCalciner Burner.

St Marys Cement, part of the Votorantim Group, has ordered, via Arctic Combustion, two K-Jet Calciner Burners for natural gas at the riser for its Ontario, Canada plant. The K-Jet Burner has a cutter block system that adjusts gas velocity on the fly during operation.

The CRH Mississauga plant in Canada has hired FCT to make an audit of several of its pieces of combustion equipment of the plant.

US: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have agreed a settlement with Cemex, under which the company will invest approximately US$10m to cut air pollution at five of its cement plants to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. Under the consent decree lodged in the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Cemex will also pay a US$1.69m civil penalty, conduct energy audits at the five plants, and spend US$150,000 on energy efficiency projects to mitigate the effects of past excess emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from its facilities.

“This settlement requires Cemex to use state-of-the-art technology to reduce harmful air pollution, improving public health in vulnerable communities across the South and Southeast,” said Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “EPA is committed to tackling clean air violations at the largest sources, cutting the pollutants that cause respiratory illnesses like asthma.”

The five Cemex cement plants affected by the deal are located in Demopolis in Alabama, Louisville in Kentucky, Knoxville in Tennessee and New Braunfels and Odessa in Texas. The Knox County, Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky air pollution control authorities participated in this settlement. Cemex is required to install pollution control technology that will reduce emissions of NO_x and establish strict limits for sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions. The cement producer will install and continuously operate a selective non-catalytic reduction system for controlling NO_x at the five plants and meet emission limits that are consistent with the current best available control technology for NO_x. EPA estimates this will result in NO_x emissions reductions of over 4000t/yr. Each facility will also be subject to strict SO₂ emission limits.

This settlement is part of EPA’s National Enforcement Initiative to control harmful emissions from large sources of pollution, which includes cement plants, under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration requirements. The total combined SO₂ and NO_x emission reductions secured from cement plant settlements under this initiative will exceed 75,000t/yr once all the required pollution controls have been installed and implemented.

The settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.