Displaying items by tag: Cementos Cosmos

Spain: Votorantim España plans to invest Euro15m in an upgrade to improve the efficiency of its subsidiary Cementos Cosmos' Toral de los Vados cement plant in Léon. The project will reduce the plant's power consumption by 7%, while increasing its clinker production by 11% to 3100t/day. Cementos Cosmos expects to commission the newly upgraded plant before the end of 2023. ALIMKC News has reported that the local authority has altered the plant's environmental authorisation accordingly.

The data on cement consumption for 2021 in Spain is out this week and it looks promising. As the national cement association Oficemen explained, last year was the sector’s best for over a decade, nearly reaching 15Mt consumption and exceeding the figure in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Oficemen also singled out particular strong performance in December 2021. It now expects this growth trend to continue into 2022 with a forecast of 5% to 15.6Mt predicted based on both domestic and infrastructure segments.

Graph 1: Cement consumption in Spain, 2012 – 2021. Source: Oficemen.

The Spanish cement industry reached a peak consumption of over 50Mt in the late 2000s before hitting a near-50 year low in the 2010s in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The market then started to recover in the second half of the 2010s until Covid-19 came along. A report on the Spanish cement market to the start of 2021 that lays out the situation can be found in the February 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine. The larger news stories since then have been Votorantim Cimentos’ growth in the market through its acquisitions of FYM and Cementos Balboa, and Çimsa Çimento’s final completion of its deal to buy the Buñol white cement plant from Cemex. Each of these stories involve an integrated cement plant changing ownership.

Looking back at Oficemen’s summary describing 2012 depicts a much different dwindling market. However, one commonality it shares with the association’s roundup for 2021 is that it complains about the country’s disadvantage in electricity costs compared to its neighbours. Back in 2012 this was framed as holding back exports. As Oficemen noted at the time it exported 5.9Mt of cement in 2012, less than half the 13Mt it exported in 1983. Jump forward to 2021 and exports are now 6.8Mt. Energy is still a key issue though. Now Oficemen’s president, José Manuel Cascajero Rodríguez, says that the sector’s production costs have increased by 25% since the latest round of electricity price rises began. He then compares the cost of energy intensive industry in Spain unfavourably against France and Germany and calls for a structural change in the Spanish electricity market to make prices more predictable. Cement producers elsewhere in Europe and beyond may share Oficemen’s concerns regard unpredictable energy prices over the last six months but electricity has been a particular issue for Spain for a long time. To take one recent local example, in November 2021 Cementos Cosmos said it was planning to scale down the production of clinker at its Córdoba cement plant as a result of the high cost of electricity.

The other issue that gets raised in Oficemen’s 2021 summary is competition from cement importers outside the European Union (EU) and the necessity of a border carbon adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to take in account carbon taxation for producers within Europe. To jump back a bit, back in May 2021 the EU Emissions trading Scheme (ETS) reached Euro50/t. Then in December 2021 Cembureau, the European cement association, published a calculation predicting that if the EU ETS CO₂ cost made it to Euro90/t then this could represent 12 - 15% of the production costs of cement producers. Well, as readers will have guessed, the EU ETS beat Euro90/t on 2 February 2022 and then rose to Euro96.7/t on 7 February 2022. Answers in an email for when readers think the EU ETS price will top Euro100/t.

All of the above feeds neatly into the week’s other big Spanish news story: Cemex and Synhelion have successfully produced clinker from concentrated solar radiation at a pilot unit at the Very High Concentration Solar Tower of IMDEA Energy near Madrid. It’s early days yet as the process needs to be scaled up but, make no mistake, this is a big story. An interview with the team behind Cemex and Synhelion’s solar concentration project can be found in the December 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine for more information. The SOLPART (Solar-Heated Reactors for Industrials Production of Reactive Particulates) project in France did similar research a few years ago but it didn’t reach the 1500°C target required to reach the sintering phase where clumps of clinker form. US-based Heliogen has been trying to industrialise concentrated solar energy but not much has been heard about its cement-industry ambitions since it said it reached temperatures of about 1000°C in 2019.

The relevance of an eventual full-scale concentrated solar unit for the entire production line or just the preheater and/or calciner at a cement plant in Spain makes considerable sense. At a stroke energy costs are reduced, diverted to a renewable source and any desired CO₂ capture becomes, in theory, easier and cheaper. Cemex said in the interview with Global Cement Magazine that the tentative next step would be a pilot unit at a cement plant, although, candidate plants could be in the US or Mexico, as well as Spain. Another side of the drive to cut energy and carbon costs can also be seen in a couple of photovoltaic solar projects supplying cement plants that were announced in 2021 for Spanish plants run by Cemex and Cementos Cosmos.

We leave the Spanish cement sector in a growth phase but with plenty of challenges ahead, not least from electricity costs and the mounting cost of carbon. Yet in common with other countries in Europe the industry faces a high-wire balancing act between staying economically viable and inching towards net zero. It’s conceivable that an industrial scale concentrated solar unit at a cement plant in Spain by 2030 might steady the wobbles along the way.

Spain: Cementos Cosmos plans to scale down the production of clinker at its Córdoba cement plant as a result as the high cost of electricity. The Cordoba Day newspaper has reported that parent company Votorantim Cimentos said that clinker grinding operations at the site will continue to ensure a sufficient cement supply in the region.

The Córdoba cement plant employs 48 people. The company is currently negotiating the situation and the scope of its impacts with the workforce.

Spain: Votorantim Cimentos has started a Euro2m project to install a new clinker cooler at its Toral de los Vados plant. The work is expected to last until early December 2021 at the subsidiary run by Cementos Cosmos. The project will improve the energy efficiency of the plant. In August 2021 construction started on a 6.2MW solar plant to supply electricity to the site.

Spain: Construction work has started on 6.2MW solar plant that will supply electricity to Cementos Cosmos’ Toral de los Vados integrated plant in León. Commissioning is scheduled by February 2022. The photovoltaic plant will include over 11,400 solar panels in an area of around 10 hectares. It will meet 15% of the plant’s electricity demands. Spain-based solar specialist EIDF (Energía, Innovación y Desarrollo Fotovoltaico) is supplying the unit at a previously reported cost of Euro4m.

Spain: Cementos Cosmos and the Cooperativa Apícola del Bierzo have installed 25 bee hives at the Corullón quarry, which supports the integrated Toral de los Vados plant in Leon. The collaboration agreement aims to promote the production of honey, propolis and pollen. The hives will be cared for by the Bierzo Beekeeping Cooperative and the adaptation and maintenance of the land where they will be located will be carried out by Cementos Cosmos. The cement company will also become the preferred customer for the production of the beehives located in the quarry. Following the signing of the agreement plant director Jaime Santoalla said, "we are convinced of the coexistence and synergies between our industry and other sectors of Bierzo, such as the agricultural-food sector.”

Spain: A regional court has ruled in favour of Cementos Cosmos in a case brought by local environmental group Bierzo Aire Limpio. The protestors alleged that the company had violated regulations at its Toral de los Vados cement plant in El Bierzo, León. The court ruled that the producer had acted correctly and in continuous communication with the administration.

Spain: Cementos Cosmos has partnered with France-based EDF energy to establish a 6.2MW solar power plant in Toral de los Vados, León, at a cost of Euro4m. The Diario de León newspaper has reported that the plant intends to use 9.0GWhr/yr of energy from the new unit. This will provide 15% of the electrical power requirements at the cement plant. The 14,000-panel project is scheduled for completion in mid-2021.

Spain: Votorantim Cimentos España has appointed Juan Aguilera as the new Industrial Director of Cementos Cosmos. He will supervise the management of the four integrated and two grinding plants the company operates in Spain, according to the Diario de León newspaper. Aguilera has worked for Votorantim and related companies for nearly 20 years spending time managing plants at Córdoba, Niebla and Malaga. He has also worked as the Director of Operations for Votorantim Cimentos in Brazil. Aguilera started his career at the Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Sciences and he holds a doctorate in chemical sciences.

Spain: A 25% alternative fuel (AF) substitution rate has accounted for a 9650t reduction in CO₂ emissions at Cementos Cosmos’ 0.7Mt/yr Oural, Galicia plant, lowering the specific CO2 emissions of its clinker by 45kg/t. A main constituent of the AF mix was olive stones. Cementos Cosmos Oural plant managing director Jaime Santoalla said, “At Cementos Cosmos, we accept our responsibility to meet the global objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”