Displaying items by tag: Calcined Clay

France: Holcim has opened what it says is the first calcined clay unit in Europe at its Saint-Pierre-la-Cour cement plant. The production line uses the company’s proximA Tech process to produce up to 0.5Mt/yr of products in the ECOPlanet range. The unit is powered with 100% biomass-based alternative fuels and uses waste heat recovery systems to make production “nearly carbon free and ultra-efficient.”

Miljan Gutovic, Region Head Europe for Holcim, said “The opening of the first calcined clay cement production line in Europe is another milestone in our mission to decarbonise building. We are scaling up our calcined clay cements across all regions by 2025, to advance our ECOPlanet range of low-carbon cement, making low-carbon construction possible at scale.”

The upgrade project received financial support from the French government, as part of the ‘France Relance’ scheme to invest in large-scale decarbonisation and energy efficiency initiatives.

Image by Simon de l'Ouest CC BY-SA 4.0

Taking a look at the most read news stories on the Global Cement website in 2022 reveals what readers have been interested in. The usual bias applies due to the prominence of countries where English is prevalent and there is a concentration on stories from earlier in the year. Yet, even with these constraints, key trends identified elsewhere emerge. Read the December 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine for a roundup of what we think has been noteworthy.

Top 10 news stories on Global Cement website in 2022

1. Holcim receives bids for Ambuja Cements
2. JK Lakshmi Cement and TARA to launch limestone calcined clay cement production
3. Ramco Cements to commission new plant at Kurnool in February 2022
4. CalPortland to buy Redding cement plant from Martin Marietta
5. ACC launches Houses of Tomorrow in India
6. CRH exits Russian market
7. HeidelbergCement freezes investments in Russian operations
8. US facing cement shortage
9. HeidelbergCement, Holcim and Sabancı Holding are potential buyers for Sika’s US assets
10. Jaiprakash Associates seeking to sell all assets

The two large India-based acquisition and merger (M&A) stories are both present at early stages of their development. Firstly, Adani Group went on to buy Holcim’s two subsidiaries, Ambuja Cements and ACC, becoming the second largest cement producer in the country. Secondly, Jaiprakash Associates was reported to be in dire financial straits in the autumn and looking to sell off more assets. This came to pass in mid-December 2022 when Dalmia Cement (Bharat) reached a deal to buy Jaiprakash Associates’ cement assets for US$684m. Incidentally, Adani Group made the news this week when it published plans to suspend production at two of its newly acquired cement plants in Himachal Pradesh due to high freight rates. The state government responded with a court order requiring the cement producer to justify its actions that, in its view, would detrimentally affect the lives of many. While it seems unlikely that the plants will close permanently, this incident does demonstrate that Adani Group is starting to take action with its new cement business.

The other M&A story concerns cement companies buying assets outside of the standard cement, concrete and aggregates triad. Global Cement has covered this business shift increasingly since Holcim acquired Firestone Building Products in 2021. The story in 2022 that readers were interested in concerned potential buyers for Sika US, an admixture manufacturer. This one also has a sustainability angle because admixtures can be used to make cement and concrete more efficient in different ways. A more obvious example of cement production becoming more environmentally friendly was that of an India-based cement producer preparing to start production of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3). The increased production of blended cements around the world has been a big story in 2022, particularly in the US.

Cement shortages in parts of the US were a theme we picked up on a few times in 2022. Nationally it followed supply issues in the southwest in early 2021 that led Cemex to restart a mothballed kiln at a plant in Mexico with the express aim of serving the export market.

In April 2022 shortages were being reported on the other side of the country in Alabama and South Carolina. Ultimately this was blamed on labour and supply chain issues in the aftermath of the coronavirus shutdowns. The other big US story in 2022 was back in California where CalPortland agreed to buy the Redding cement plant from Martin Marietta. The subsidiary of Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement later struck a further deal to buy the Tehachapi plant, also from Martin Marietta, in August 2022. Both of these integrated plants were previously sold by Lehigh Hanson to Martin Marietta in 2021. In November 2022 Lehigh Hanson announced that its remaining integrated unit in California, the Permanente plant near Cupertino, was going to be transitioned to a distribution and quarry site.

Finally, the top news stories in 2022 where not immune to the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The big underlying narrative has been a jolt to global energy prices. What could be seen here though were the efforts of the multinational cement producers to limit their exposure to the market in Russia and any potential legal action. CRH led the exodus, although it had a relatively small business to offload. Heidelberg Materials froze its investments in its Russia-based subsidiary in March 2022. Holcim completed the divestment of its business to local management in mid-December 2022. Buzzi Unicem withdrew from any operational involvement with its subsidiary SLK Cement in May 2022.

That’s it from Global Cement Weekly for 2022. Enjoy the seasonal and New Year break if you have one.

Global Cement Weekly will return on 4 January 2023

Angola: Portugal-based IPIAC has won a contract to upgrade the Cimangola plant in Luanda region to use Limestone Calcined Clay (LC3). The project will be the first in the world to convert an existing clinker production line into a clay calciner. Switzerland-based Ecosolutions conducted a study of raw materials and sustainability issues prior to the signing of the contract. The project will be coordinated and supervised by Portugal-based Techbelt. Once completed the plant will produce 0.3Mt/yr of calcined clay, which can be used to manufacture up to 1Mt/yr of LC3 cement.

Germany: Loesche has published its Sustainability Report of its performance in 2021. The supplier’s Scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions declined by 6.1% year-on-year to 229t from 244t in 2020 and by 19% over the two years from 2019, when they totalled 282t. It reduced the share of Scope 2 emissions in the figure to 40% from 41% in 2020 and 45% in 2019.

Loesche offers emissions-reducing products to the global cement industry under the label Greenkey Solutions. These include its A/Fuel and H/combust ranges for alternative fuels and green hydrogen upgrades, its C/Clay range for clay calcining and grinding, its Digital/Ready 4.0! range for predictive process optimisation and smart asset management, its E/Slag range for ground granulated blast furnace slag upgrades and its S/Crete range for waste concrete recycling, as well as audits for retrofits. Together, Loesche says that its products can reduce the global cement sector’s carbon footprint by 90%. Within this, Loesche believes that calcined clay technology alone can reduce cement’s CO₂ emissions by 40% and its energy demand by 21%.

Loesche said that its launch during the year of its H₂Optimum grinding bed spraying system can reduce grinding mills’ water consumption by 50%.

Colombia: Cementos Argos recorded sales of US$1.26bn in the first half of 2022, up by 13% year-on-year from US$1.11bn in the first half of 2021. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 16% to US$221m from US$264m. The group's US sales accounted for 62% of its revenues during the six-month period. They rose by 5.4% year-on-year to US$776m from US$736m in the first half of 2021. Cementos Argos' US business' EBITDA fell by 25% to US$133m from US$177m. Colombia contributed sales of US$304m, 24% of group revenues, up by 15% year-on-year from US$263m in the first half of 2021.

Cementos Argos' first-half 2022 cement sales totaled 8.17Mt, down by 5.2% from 8.62Mt in the first half of 2021. Its US cement volumes fell by 1.2% to 3.06Mt, its Colombian cement volumes by 6.2% to 2.98Mt and its Caribbean and Central America cement volumes by 22% to 2.13Mt.

Chief executive officer Juan Estaban Calle said "We are convinced of the great opportunity that lies ahead to lead the industry in sustainability and generate greater value for our shareholders and all stakeholders. The calcined clay pilot that we are starting in the USA is another important milestone in our roadmap to produce carbon-neutral concrete by 2050. The results of the second quarter were very positive both in terms of revenue growth and volumes, driven, mainly, by the solidity of demand in the US and the good dynamics of the Colombian economy amidst a challenging situation of high inflation and increase in interest rates."

Ghana: Heidelberg said that it has signed an agreement with CBI for the acquisition of 50% of the latter’s shares. CBI is the parent company of CBI Ghana, which operates the 0.6Mt/yr Tema grinding plant in Accra. It is in the process of establishing a calcined clay plant at the facility. HeidelbergCement says that it and CBI will explore the possibility of further calcined clay projects in West Africa. Other investors in CBI Ghana include Denmark-based Investeringsfonden for Udviklingslande (IFU) and Norway-based Norfund.

HeidelbergCement’s existing Ghanaian susbidiary Ghacem operates 3Mt/yr-worth of grinding capacity at two plants in Accra and Takoradi.

HeidelbergCement managing board member Hakan Gurdal said “Characterised by high sustained market growth rates, Ghana is one of HeidelbergCement’s core markets in Africa. The new flash calciner in Ghana will be the largest worldwide, with a calcined clay production capacity of more than 400,000t/yr. Start of production is planned for 2024.” Gurdal concluded “We are committed to lowering our CO₂ footprint also in emerging markets.”

Denmark: FLSmidth has formed a partnership called ECoClay to develop and commercialise the technology needed to electrify the calcination of clay used in cement production. The partners include the Danish Technological Institute, US-based industrial heating specialist Rondo Energy, France-based Vicat, Colombia-based Cementos Argos and the Technical University of Denmark. The project is partly funded by the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP) under the Danish Energy Agency.

The use of calcined clay in cement production allows cement producers to replace up to 30% of limestone-based clinker, resulting in up to 40% lower CO₂/t in cement produced. By electrifying the process, ideally powered by renewable sources, the ECoClay partnership expects to further reduce emissions by 10% at more uniform conditions that allow processing of a broader range of raw clays.

Based on the shared research and tests on high-temperature electric heat generation, storage solutions and renewable grid integration, the ECoClay partnership will build a pilot plant at FLSmidth’s research and development centre in Denmark. The consortium will seek to demonstrate how the ECoClay process is superior to the conventional combustion processes, has a smaller physical footprint on site and significantly lower emissions of air pollutants. According to the project plan, the ECoClay partners expect to be able to commence construction of the first full-scale electric clay calcination installation by the end of 2025.

Ghana: Denmark-based Investeringsfonden for Udviklingslande (IFU) and Norway-based Norfund have invested US$27.9m in CBI Ghana. The funding will support the cement producer’s upgrade of a clay calcination unit at its 0.6Mt/yr Tema grinding plant in Accra. Denmark-based FLSmidth is supplying the equipment for the project.

African cement producers have confirmed their interest in calcined clay over the last month with two new projects. The big one was announced last week when FLSmidth revealed that it had received an order from CBI Ghana. This follows the launch of a Limestone Calcined Clay (LC3) project in Malawi in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi.

FLSmidth says that its order includes the world’s largest gas suspension calciner system and a complete grinding station. The kit will be installed at CBI Ghana’s plant near Accra in the south of the country. The new clay calciner system is expected to substitute 30 - 40% of the clinker in the final product, resulting in a reduction of up to 40% CO₂/t of blended cement compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). Overall the equipment manufacturers reckon that the grinding plant will reduce its CO₂ emissions by 20% compared to its current output. There has been no indication of how much the order costs but CBI Ghana expects energy and fuel savings, as well as lower overheads from clinker imports.

The public announcement of the Ghana project was also foreshadowed by the visit of Professor Karen Scrivener to the Ghana Standards Authority in February 2022. This was significant because Scrivener is the head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and has been one of the key instigators of the LC3 initiative since the early 2000s. Other calcined clay cements are available such as Futurecem or polysius activated clay (see below) but LC3 is arguably the most famous given its promotion in developing countries.

The Malawi project is at a much earlier stage. The government launched the public private partnership LC3 project in mid-March 2022 in conjunction with Lafarge Cement Malawi and Terrastone, a brick manufacturer. The Ministry of Mining is currently developing a memorandum of understanding with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a Germany-based development agency. India-based Tara Engineering has also been linked to the scheme.

One thing to note about the Malawi project is that it is the first calcined clay project in the cement industry based in East Africa. All the other African ones are based in West Africa. The other two projects in this region are run by Turkey-based Oyak Çimento and its subsidiary Cimpor. The first of these is a 0.3Mt/yr calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement grinding production line that was commissioned in mid-2020. This plant is based at Abidjan in Ivory Coast. The second is a new plant that Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions is building for Oyak Çimento at Kribi in Cameroon. This unit has a 720t/day calcined clay and a 2400t/day cement production capacity and it will use the supplier’s ‘polysius activated clay’ technology. ThyssenKrupp’s involvement came to light in early 2020 and commissioning was scheduled for late 2021. However, no update on the state of the project has been issued so far in 2022.

As the above examples show, Sub-Saharan Africa has at least one live calcined clay plant, two plants are being built and there’s one more at the development stage. This puts the region neck-and-neck with Europe, which has a similar mixture of current and developing projects. This column has been covering the wider trend of the growing usage of various types of blended cements recently, particularly in Europe and the US, with slag cements, Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) and more. With PLC, for example, note the transition of another two North American cement plants to PLC this week alone. As for calcined clay cement, it is fascinating to see the focus move to a different part of the world. Several commentators have predicted that the future looks set to be dominated by blended cements using whichever supplementary cementitious material (SCM) is most available for each plant. The growth in calcined clay confirms this view.

Global Cement is researching clay calcination use in the cement industry for the next edition of the Global Cement Directory. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any information on new industrial and research installations.

Malawi: The Germany-based Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has launched the construction of a clay calcination plant in Malawi, called the Limestone Calcined Clay Project. The Nyasa Times newspaper has reported that the government has said that increased calcined clay use can reduce domestic cement production’s carbon footprint by a third.