Displaying items by tag: Alternative Fuels
Philippines: Holcim Philippines plans to invest US$4.18m in upgrades to its cement plants at La Union, Bacnotan, and Lugait, Misamis Oriental to improve business and sustainability performance.
The subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim held a ceremonial signing ceremony on 7 July 2021 to award the contract to Sinoma CBMIPH Construction to install a drying facility at the La Union plant. The project is intended to reduce the fuel consumption of the unit by reusing hot gases from operations to dry materials. The integrated plant was recently awarded an ISO 45001:2018 for Occupational Health and Safety Management System and recertified for ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System) and ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) by certification body TÜV Rheinland. Holcim Philippines has also contracted Sinoma CBMIPH to install a drying facility at its Lugait plant that will reduce moisture of raw materials to improve grinding operations. The La Union and Lugait projects are scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022 and by the end of October 2021 respectively.
In January 2021, Holcim Philippines also started projects worth US$2.42m to raise the efficiency of converting qualified waste materials to alternative fuels of its cement plant in Bulacan, Norzagaray. These will enable its Geocycle subsidiary to support the Bulacan plant to increase its thermal substitution rate by using more post-consumer and municipal solid wastes as alternative fuels.
South Korea: Korea Cement Association (KCA) members have agreed to reduce their net CO2 emissions to zero by 2050. To help them achieve this target, the state-owned Korea Development Bank has pledged US876m in investments in emissions reduction and green production upgrades by 2025, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. The KCA says that 90% of local cement producers have increased their environmental, social and corporate governance investment and reduced their use of coal.
France: Denmark-based FLSmidth has won a contract to supply a 400t/day calcined clay production line to Vicat’s Xeuilley integrated cement plant. The order includes flash calciner technology, an environmental control system and alternative fuel (AF) firing, handling and storage equipment. The line will have a design capacity of up to 525t/day and is scheduled for commissioning in 2023. It will enable clinker substitution in cement of up to 40%, according to the supplier. It says that cement produced using calcined clay will have a 16% smaller carbon footprint than its clinker-based equivalent. The value of the contract is Euro26.8m.
Vicat deputy chief executive officer Eric Bourdon said, “EU regulations and increasing demand for more sustainable cement has accelerated the decision to introduce clay as an environmental alternative to clinker in our production. With clay readily available in the area and positive results from pilots at FLSmidth’s test facilities in Denmark, we feel confident about the technology and hope to be able to expand further in the future.”
Croatia: Building materials producer Nexe Grupa invested a total of Euro15.3m in upgrades to its plants in 2020. This included subsidiary Našicecement’s capacity expansion at its Našice integrated cement plant. The producer also implemented alternative fuels substitution in the plant’s kiln line.
Germany: Data from HeidelbergCement’s Sustainability Report 2020 reveals that it reduced its specific net CO2 emissions by 2% year-on-year to 576kg/t of cementious material in 2020 from 589 kg/t in 2019. This represents a 23% reduction since 1990. The company has a target of 30% by 2025. It has a number of carbon capture and utilisation/storage (CCU/S) projects in various stages of development to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Other data shows that its alternative fuels substitution rate rose to 25.7% from 24% and its clinker ratio fell slightly to 74.3%.
During the reporting year, the group joined the climate lobbying group Foundation 2° and achieving a CDP climate protection rating of A. For water security it secured the second-highest rating of A-. The group’s specific water consumption for cement rose by 5% in 2020 to 271.9l/t of cement from 260l/t in 2019. However the company says it is continuing to improve water consumption reporting at its sites until 2025.
Fuels in India
02 June 2021Another week and it’s another commodity story related to the effects of coronavirus. This time the Indian press and financial analysts have started to notice a shift in the fuel mix of some of the major producers from petcoke to coal. UltraTech Cement moved to 30% petcoke and 60% imported coal in the fourth quarter of its 2021 financial year that ended on 31 March 2021. This compares to a reported mix of 77% and 10% in the previous year according to Mint. Dalmia Bharat reduced its share of petcoke to 52% in the fourth quarter from 70% in the third quarter, while its coal mix was 35 - 40% in the fourth quarter.
Price is the driver here. UltraTech Cement’s chief financial officer Atul Daga summed the situation up in an earnings call in late January 2021. Essentially, he said that fuel represented about 13% of total costs for cement producers in India and that both the cost of coal and petcoke nearly doubled from June 2020 to January 2021. However, coal is seen as the cheaper option, hence the move towards it in the fuels mix ratio. The petcoke market meanwhile has suffered due to reduced oil refinery output due to, you guessed it, the effect of coronavirus on global markets in 2020. Scarcity in the US market has particularly affected the decisions on buyers for Indian cement companies since this is the key source of their imports. Demand for petcoke from Latin America and the Mediterranean hasn’t helped either. Both petcoke and coal markets are expected to stabilise in the second half of 2021. Diesel prices have also risen recently causing UltraTech Cement’s power and fuel costs to increase by 28% year-on-year to US$356m and logistics costs, including freight expenses, to rise by 25% to US$449m in the fourth quarter of its 2021 financial year.
With this in mind it’s interesting then, that for some analysts at least, fuel prices have been seen as more worrying for cement producer profits than the latest round of coronavirus-related lockdowns from India’s second wave of infection. Fitch Ratings for example, warned that the impact of mounting fuel costs would continue to be seen in the quarter to June 2021 but that it would subside due to the switch in fuel mix and price rises passed to end consumers. On the lockdowns, it forecast that localised restrictions, with cement plants being allowed to continue operating in most states, would cause a far less pronounced drop in cement demand than during the first national lockdown.
Graph 1: Monthly cement production in India, January 2019 – April 2021. Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.
Graph 1 above shows that the crisis the Indian cement sector faced during the first lockdown, when production crumbled by 85% year-on-year to 4.3Mt in April 2020. The following recovery saw production reach its second highest ever figure at 32.9Mt in March 2021. It’s too soon to tell what’s happening from the national figure but that dip in April 2021 is not looking good so far.
One benefit from unstable fuel prices is that it builds the economic case for cement producers to raise their alternative fuels substitution rates. UltraTech Cement, for example, reported that its ‘green’ energy rate grew to 13% in its 2021 financial year from 11% in 2020. With a target of 34% by its 2024 financial year, this is an ideal opportunity for a change for both UltraTech Cement and other producers.
Sweden: Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Cementa plans to upgrade its Slite unit in Gotland to become the world’s first carbon-neutral cement plant. This will be achieved through modification of the plant’s fuel system to ‘significantly raise’ biobased fuel substitution, as well as 100% carbon capture and storage (CCS) via a 1.8Mt/yr CCS installation. Full-scale capturing of the plant’s CO2 emissions is scheduled by 2030.
Chair Dominik von Achten said, “HeidelbergCement will be the leader in the global cement industry on its transformation path towards climate neutrality. The key for decarbonising our industry is to find, apply and scale technical solutions for carbon capture and utilisation or storage (CCU/S). After having gained valuable experience with CCU/S technologies in Norway and other countries, we are now excited to make the next step with a completely carbon-neutral cement plant in Sweden.”
Portugal: Denmark-based FLSmidth has won a contract to supply a chlorine bypass system to Cimpor’s Souselas cement plant. The aim is to eliminate chlorine build-up in the plant’s flue gas after the company increases its refuse-derived fuel (RDF) usage rate to 60%. Work is scheduled to begin in mid-2021, and production will stop until its completion and the commissioning of the installation in early 2022. No value for the order has been disclosed.
Cimpor Cement project manager Paulo Evangelista said, “Investing in the chlorine bypass is a key step on our journey towards reducing our environmental footprint. On top of the obvious incentives to increase our fuel substitution, like lower CO2 emissions and financial savings, we are experiencing better waste handling infrastructure in the local area. All this has made it an easy choice to make. FLSmidth knows our Souselas site and has been key in delivering a solution that will enable this next phase on our sustainability journey.”
Taiwan: Taiwan Cement’s revenue rose by 11.3% year-on-year to US$788m in the first quarter of 2021. Its income increased by 11% to US$119m. It attributed this to profit growth in its cement businesses in Taiwan and Europe despite ‘weak’ sales prices in China.
Chairman Nelson Chang said, “To reduce carbon emissions, using alternative fuel and material for cement production, adopting renewable energy, and expanding energy storage usage are crucial and Taiwan Cement aims to play our role in helping society achieving the goal of a low carbon environment.” In 2020 the group processed over 9Mt of alternative fuels in its Greater China business.
Cemex España reopens Lloseta cement plant
04 May 2021Spain: Cemex España reopened its Lloseta cement plant in Majorca in mid-April 2021. The unit will start by operating at a low production level until demand levels build, according to the El País newspaper. The plant intends to use alternative fuels such as biomass to reduce its CO2 emissions. It is also working with the Power to Green Hydrogen Mallorca project to use ‘green’ hydrogen created partly using solar energy. The plant now employs 20 people, compared to 96 before its closure in January 2019.