Displaying items by tag: Cemengal

There is lots to mull over for the cement industry from last week’s Global Slag Conference that took place in Prague.

One striking map from Michael Connolly, TMS International, showed the status of slag and steel products in the US. It was a multi-coloured patchwork of different regulatory statuses from approval to be used as a product to regulatory exclusion. This won’t come as a surprise to many readers but even within one country the way slag can be used legally varies.

As this column reported last year after the Euroslag Conference, the European Union can be presented in a similar way. The irony here is that increased use of slag and other secondary cementitious materials (SCM) is exactly the kind of change the cement and concrete industries need to make to decrease their carbon emissions. Constant quibbles over whether slag is a product or a waste undermine this. Happily then that Connolly was able to report progress in the US as lobbying by industry and the US National Slag Association have led to more states legally accepting slag as a product.

However, cement producers have other concerns in addition to environmental ones when it comes to slag usage as Doug Haynes from Smithers Apex explained. Haynes, a former UK steel industry worker turned consultant, spoke around a market report on the future of ferrous slag. His take on Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) slag was that despite fuel savings, decreased CO₂ emissions and the benefits of embodied iron when it is used as a raw material for clinker production, it is in the interests of cement producers for slag to be a waste because they then get it for free or at a reduced rate. It’s a similar story to the use of waste-derived fuels powering cement plant kilns where producers want lower fuel costs but waste collectors want value for their product. Unsurprisingly, Haynes wanted cement producers to accept the value embodied in BOF slag.

Charles Zeynel of ZAG International, an SCM trader, then laid out the situation where global SCM supplies are remaining static but cement demand is growing. Coal-fired power station closures are reducing supplies of fly ash, another SCM, placing pressure on existing granulated blast furnace slag (GBS) slag supplies. The message was very much in a slag trader’s favour but instructive nethertheless. If slag is in demand then the price will rise. Anecdotally, the increased number of cement producers at the conference seemed to indicate increased interest of the cement industry in the product.

Lots more speakers followed on topics such as slag beneficiation, grinding advances and new innovations. On grinding, one surprise that popped up was that Spain’s Cemengal has sold a Plug & Grind Vertical mill to CRH Tarmac’s cement plant at Dunbar in Scotland. It is the first such sale of this product in Europe. The last speaker, Jürgen Haunstetter of the German Aerospace Centre, stuck out particularly with his presentation on using slag as a thermal energy storage medium in a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. This may not seem connected to the cement industry but it is along similar lines to Italcementi’s project at the Aït Baha cement plant in Morocco, which uses a CSP process that can be used with the plant’s waste heat recovery unit.

The Global Slag Conference will return in April 2019 in Aachen, Germany.

Read the full review of the 13th Global Slag Conference 2018

UK: Spain’s Cemengal is supplying a 0.5Mt/yr Plug & Grind Vertical mill to Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant. Work started in April 2018 and the project is expected to be completed by July 2019. The unit follows the Plug & Grind product line’s modular format and it includes a FLSmidth OK Mill 37.3. The mill will be used to grind clinker at the cement plant although the subsidiary of CRH may also use the mill to grind slag. The order is Cemengal’s first Plug & Grind Vertical in Europe.

Honduras: Cementos Argos has ordered two Plug&Grind XL modular grinding units for a project in Honduras. Each mill has a production capacity of 220,000t/yr. The ball mills are 3.0 x 9.5m and they have a power of 1100kW. They also include 50,000m³/hr bag filters and classifiers. The scope of supply includes new cement storage silos for finished product, packing and dispatching equipment. The cement producer announced in early February 2018 that it was planning to spend US$20m on building a new cement grinding plant at Choloma.

Kenya: Ndovu Cement is set to start up a new modular grinding station Plug&Grind XL from Cemengal in the summer of 2017. Installation of the portable grinding plant at the site in Nairobi was completed in June 2017.

Indonesia: Cemengal has completed the commissioning of a new modular grinding station Plug&Grind XL for Cemindo in Benkulu. This is the third unit that Cemindo has installed in the country.

Morocco: Cemengal says that a modular and portable grinding station Plug&Grind XL it is supplying for LafargeHolcim in Laâyoune is proceeding to schedule. No details regarding cost and production capacity have been disclosed but the model has a cement production capacity of up to 0.22Mt/yr and a total installed power of around 1500kW.

Guatemala: Cemengal has commissioned a new 12t/hr Plug&Grind portable grinding unit for Cemento Regional. The station will supply cement to south and central Guatemala including the capital, Guatemala City. First cement production at the site was marked by the attendance of Roberto Díaz Durán, president and CEO of Cemento Regional, Antonio González Gallego, president and CEO of Cemengal and Moisés Rodríguez Núñez, sales and marketing manager of Cemengal.

Spain: Cemengal has introduced a new model to its range of modular and potable grinding stations, the Plug&Grind X-treme, the fourth generation in the series. The new addition has a production capacity of 50t/hr or 0.4Mt/yr. The concept still remains the same, with only eight containers and six modules. It includes a XP4 I classifier from Magotteaux.

Indonesia: Cemengal has completed the commissioning period for Cemindo in Medan. Two Plug&Grind XL units are operational at the site, allowing the cement producer to sell nearly 0.5Mt/yr of cement. A third unit is also due to start work in the country in the next few months.

Zambia: Lafarge Zambia has successfully commissioned a Cemengal Plug & Grind cement grinding plant in Ndola which will produce 100,000t/yr of cement and take the plant's total capacity to 500,000t/yr. It has been constructed on available land within the Ndola plant.

"This project has utilised very minimal amount of land. It is fitted with state-of-the art technology and has bag filters to aid environmental management," said Lafarge Zambia CEO, Emmanuel Rigaux. He added that the plant will produce Supaset Cement. This will be exported to the Democratic Republic of Congo and other neighbouring countries.

Also present at the event was the LafargeHolcim Group Area Manager for East Africa and Indian Ocean, Dominique Drouet who was on a three day visit to Zambia.