Displaying items by tag: Canada
McInnis Cement inaugurates Port-Daniel–Gascons plant
27 September 2017Canada: McInnis Cement has inaugurated its Port-Daniel–Gascons plant in Quebec. Provincial Prime Minister Philippe Couillard attended the ceremony. First cement at the 2.2Mt/yr plant was produced in June 2017 and the unit has started commercial production since then. Construction at the site started in mid-2014. However, cost overruns saw the government-backed project delayed and then taken over by an investor.
McInnis releases distribution plan for Atlantic provinces of Canada
08 September 2017Canada: McInnis, formerly McInnis Cement, has released details about its distribution plan for the Atlantic provinces. The company has acquired two CRH Canada-owned terminals allowing it to access markets in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. McInnis says it will honour the orders of the clients supplied through those terminals and integrate their current employees. In addition, McInnis has entered into an agreement with CRH Canada and will supply cement for its terminals at Long Pond, Argentia and Corner Brook in Newfoundland directly from McInnis plant in Port-Daniel – Gascons. Deliveries to Newfoundland will begin in the autumn of 2017.
“With the addition of these terminals to our network, we are now able to secure a solid position in this market” said Hervé Mallet, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of McInnis Cement.
The McInnis distribution network includes several facilities: marine terminals in Providence, Rhode Island and Sainte-Catherine, Québec were the first to be built and commissioned. The Oshawa terminal in Ontario has started operation in September 2017. A railway transshipment station in New Richmond, Québec is also operational, and the Bronx marine terminal in New York will join the network in 2018.
Death at Lafarge Canada quarry
30 August 2017Canada: A man has died after falling nearly 10m from a catwalk at Lafarge Canada’s Beachville limestone quarry near Woodstock, Ontario on 23 August 2017. Walter Nuvoloni, 47, was a long-standing purchasing manager at the company. He had been in the position since 2001.
"This is a very difficult and tragic incident and we are deeply saddened at the loss of our colleague,” said Karine Cousineau, Lafarge spokesperson, in a statement. “Our thoughts are with our colleague's friends and family. Lafarge is providing the support of our employee assistance program to help co-workers cope with the loss." Cousineau added that Lafarge Canada would not be commenting further on Nuvoloni's death.
Police initially held the scene before turning over the investigation to the Ontario Ministry of Labour, which is investigating the death. Ontario Provincial Police Constable Stacey Culbert told local press that the ministry will re-contact police if the investigation deems any action to be criminal.
Residents oppose Brookfield tyre plan
17 August 2017Canada: A group of residents close to the Lafarge Canada Brookfield plant has launched a court challenge arguing the Nova Scotia government's approval of a plan to burn tyres as an alternative fuel at the plant violated the Environment Act.
In his application for a judicial review, lawyer William Mahody wrote that Environment Minister Iain Rankin didn't properly assess the impact of emissions from the Lafarge plant in Brookfield on surrounding areas, stating that was a ‘strong potential for adverse effects’ on surface water, human health and wildlife from the project. The plan has run into criticism from environmental groups, municipal councils and area residents, who prevented a similar proposal a decade ago.
Nova Scotia’s waste diversion agency has shifted a supply of at least 280,000 tyres per year to Lafarge and recently approved the company's environmental application for a one-year pilot project to incinerate the tyres as fuel.
Lafarge says it can't comment on the judicial review. However, Robert Cumming, the environmental director at Lafarge, says research conducted off-site by a Dalhousie University engineer suggests the use of scrap tyres will lower the plant's CO2 emissions. "Our pilot project seeks to validate this evidence gathered from scientific reports and in Dalhousie University laboratories. The research team and Lafarge have committed to sharing the results with the community."
Canada: An agreement has been struck between Lafarge Canada and Metro Vancouver in which Lafarge Canada will use the solids removed during drinking water production by the municipality as an alternative raw material in cement production.
The residuals are the solids removed during the drinking water filtration process and consist of natural sediment and elements from the source water as well as coagulants and polymers from the treatment process. Between them, they have a chemical composition similar to that of red shale, one of Lafarge Canada’s raw materials. This means that the residiuals need not be landfilled and that less virgin red shale must be removed from the ground. The contract is for a minimum of 10,000t/yr.
“We are proud to have this partnership with local government and industry,” said Pascal Bouchard, the plant manager of the Richmond cement plant, which will use the residuals. “These residuals will soon be part of our city landscape, reused as an ingredient in concrete that is used in construction, from sidewalks to skyscrapers. I am hopeful that the research we have undertaken will allow other municipalities to consider industrial re-use options for their water treatment residuals.”
“We are very excited to be working with Lafarge on this innovative project, which uses residuals as a product, while reducing our overall environmental impact,” said Darrell Mussatto, Chair of Metro Vancouver’s Utilities Committee. “Our goal is to recover valuable resources from our utilities, and this project aligns perfectly with what we are hoping to achieve.”
Canada: NovaAlgoma Cement Carriers’ (NACC) Canadian subsidiary has been awarded a long-term time charter agreement with Lafarge Canada, for the provision of a modern pneumatic cement carrier early in 2018. A bulk carrier owned by NACC will be converted into a pneumatic cement carrier. It will have maximum cargo deadweight in excess of 12,500t. The conversion process is expected to take around 10 months.
The vessel will primarily carry cement from Lafarge Canada's cement plant in Bath, Ontario to distribution facilities throughout the Great Lakes but the vessel will be capable of other services for Lafarge. NACC Shipping Canada will operate and manage the vessel in Canada. No duration for the contract has been released.
McInnis Cement produces first cement
21 June 2017Canada: McInnis Cement produced the first cement at its plant in Port-Daniel–Gascons, Quebec on 16 June 2017. Construction at the 2.2Mt/yr plant started in mid-2014. However, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a pension and insurance fund manager, took charge of the government-backed project in mid-2016 after cost overruns.
“This important milestone marks the work of hundreds of employees, workers and partners who have helped make our plant a performance model for the cement industry, both in terms of productivity and environment”, said Hervé Mallet, President and chief executive officer (CEO) of McInnis Cement.
Reading the runes at the IEEE/PCA Calgary 2017
31 May 2017Ed Sullivan, the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) chief economist was in tub-thumbing mood last week at the IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Conference in Calgary, Canada. The headline figures that the PCA put out in a press release was a forecast of a 3.5% rise in cement consumption in 2018 and 2019. Yet behind this in a stirring speech given to a cement industry crowd craving growth was a tale of riches ahead. The audience lapped it up. There was only one problem: nothing has really happened yet to make any if this happen. It always seems to be riches ahead. As Sullivan freely put it, “Trump policies will impact cement… But we don’t know what they are!”
Sullivan broke down his forecast into three sections that hinged around President Trump’s desired policy changes kicking in from about the third quarter of 2019. At this point, owing to lack of information about what the Trump administration actually wants to do, Sullivan freely broke open the assumptions. These covered issues such as a tax reform, infrastructure budgeting, immigration reforms and more. As he explained it all of these issues interact, so that reducing taxes potentially pushes national debt up making infrastructure spending harder. Owing to the lack of specifics from the current administration though Sullivan was forced to resort to the more solid plans of Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and even Bernie Saunders for nuggets of information of how ‘a government’ might act. For example, he used a breakdown of Saunders’s intended infrastructure spend to try and predict how Trump’s policies could play out. Increases in highway building from the overall infrastructure spend in this context being good news for the cement industry. And as for Sullivan’s view on the impact of the Trump border wall: ‘overrated’.
The new forecasts for 2018 and 2019 appear to be retrenchment given that the PCA was predicting growth of 4% for 2016 in the middle of that year. It subsequently reduced its estimate to 2.7% for 2016 by December 2016 after the presidential election. However its figures for 2017 and 2018 have increased since the December forecast. Sullivan predicted that growth will start to surpass 5% in 2020 once Trump’s policies have time to make waves. The crescendo of his presentation at the IEEE-IAS/PCA was a prognostication of an extra requirement of 14Mt of cement in 2021 and 2022. Sullivan topped this off by saying that, “We have the supply infrastructure in place right now.” However, some delegates informally questioned afterwards where that cement might actually come from with mass international clinker capacity waiting in the wings from places like Vietnam and new cement plants such as the McInnis Cement plant in Quebec expressively targeted at the US import market about to come on line.
Sullivan has a tricky job trying to predict what will happen next in the US cement industry and sometimes his forecasts seems to change as much as the weather that cement company financial reports often blame their poor returns on. This column knows a little bit how he feels. As Sullivan’s biography points out he’s been cited by the Chicago Federal Reserve as the most accurate forecaster regarding economic growth among 30 top economists. In short he’s the best we’ve got. But Donald Trump’s approach to government so far has made his job exponentially harder. As we’ve said more than a few times when describing the US cement market, the basis are there for growth but something is holding back faster growth. Will Trump be the catalyst to break the 5% growth barrier? Looks like we’ll have to wait until late 2019 to find out.
Elsewhere, the conference brought together a large cross-section of the North American industry. Surprisingly perhaps given the change in leadership at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) several parts of the speaker and discussion programme focused on coping with National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), carbon tax schemes in Canada and California and practical carbon capture methods at the plant level. The key here seemed to be a piecemeal approach that may not necessarily be at odds with less government environmental legislation. Next year’s outing in Nashville, Tennessee looks set to be an even more important event, especially if more on Trump's infrastructure plans become known.
Brazil: Votorantim’s net revenue from its cement business fell by 14% year-on-year to US$731m in first quarter of 2017 from US$848m in the same period in 2016. The cement and steel producer blamed the continuing decline on an 8% drop in cement consumption which triggered lower sales volumes and prices. Negative currency exchange effects also contributed to the situation as the country continued to suffer from the on going political crisis and the resulting negative effects on the local economy. The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for its cement division decreased by 49% to US$60.9m from US$119m.
Outside of Brazil the group started up a 1.2Mt/yr expansion project in Turkey in April 2017. In North America its good performance driven by strong demand and cost optimisation helped to offset the group’s overall performance. In China the group sold ‘non-core’ assets worth Euro30m in May 2017.
Quebec state government plans to rebuild railway line offer boost to McInnis Cement distribution
09 May 2017Canada: Plans by the state government of Quebec to rebuild the Gaspésie railway between Matapédia and Gaspé will allow McInnis Cement to increase its distribution of cement by rail significantly. Once the line has been restored the cement producer says the number of wagons it uses could rise to 2000/yr from 300/yr.
”The flexibility of the railway combined with our maritime distribution mode allows us to improve our logistics chain and reach certain markets more efficiently, in all seasons,” said McInnis Cement chief executive officer Herve Mallet.
In December 2016 McInnis Cement confirmed its use of the rail for a volume of approximately 28,000t/yr over five years, through a transshipment facility in New Richmond, fed by truck from Port-Daniel–Gascons. Railway repairs are expected to result in the transport of at least 200,000t/yr of cement by rail.