Displaying items by tag: Denmark

Denmark: Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark will today inaugurate the ConsenCUS CO₂ capture pilot unit at Aalborg Portland Cement’s Rørdal plant. Kadri Simson, the European Union (EU) Energy Commissioner, and Lars Aagaard, the Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Supply Minister, will also attend the event. A European Commission-run carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) forum will take place in Aalborg at the same time.

Aalborg Portland Cement first established a CCUS pilot project called CORT at its cement plant in 2022 in collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with support from the EU Innovation Fund. This is now being replaced by the ConsenCUS pilot. The new project will test a more energy-efficient CCS technology that can potentially halve the energy consumption compared to traditional CO₂ capture methods by driving the process exclusively via electricity. The project partners will also investigate converting the captured CO₂ into potassium formate, a valuable resource for the chemical industry. The ConsenCUS project is supported by the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

Denmark: The first nine months of 2023 brought 1.8% year-on-year growth in FLSmidth’s consolidated sales, to Euro767m. The contribution from its cement business declined by 17%, however, to Euro188m, 24% of total sales. The division’s order intake dropped by 24% to Euro164m.

The group said “Our cement business continued to be adversely affected by the global slowdown in market demand. Consequently, we continue to take the steps necessary to preserve the long-term profitability of the business, including a significant rightsizing of the organisation. Further, our pure play strategy is progressing according to plan, and the ongoing operational and legal separation of the cement business is expected to be finalised towards the end of 2023.”

Last week the US General Services Administration (GSA) announced that it was investing US$2bn on over 150 construction projects that use low-embodied carbon (LEC) materials. The funding is intended to support the use of US-manufactured low carbon asphalt, concrete, glass and steel as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. For readers who don’t know, the GSA manages federal government property and provides contracting options for government agencies. As part of this new message, it will spend US$767m on LEC concrete on federal government buildings projects following a pilot that started in May 2023. The full list of the projects can be found here.

This is relevant because the US-based ready-mixed concrete (RMX) market has been valued roughly at around US$60bn/yr. One estimate of how much the US federal government spent on concrete was around US$5bn in 2018. So the government buys a significant minority of RMX in the country, and if it starts specifying LEC products, this will affect the industry. And, at present at least, a key ingredient of all that concrete is cement.

This isn’t the first time that legislators in the US have specified LEC concrete. In 2019 Marin County in California introduced what it said was the world’s first building code that attempted to minimise carbon emissions from concrete production. It did this by setting maximum ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and embodied carbon levels and offering several ways suppliers can achieve this, including increasing the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM), using admixtures, optimising concrete mixtures and so on. Unlike the GSA’s approach in November 2023 though, this applies to all plain and reinforced concrete installed in the area, not just a portion of procured concrete via a government agency. Other similar regional schemes in the US include limits on embodied carbon levels in RMX in Denver, Colorado, and a reduction in the cement used in RMX in Berkeley, California. Environmental services company Tangible compiled a wider list of embodied carbon building codes in North America that can be viewed here. This grouping also includes the use of building intensity policies, whole building life cycle assessments (LCA), environmental product declarations (EPD), demolition and deconstruction directives, tax incentives and building reuse plans.

Government-backed procurement codes promoting or requiring the use of LEC building materials for infrastructure projects have been around for a while in various places. The general trend has been to start with measurement via tools such as LCAs and EPDs, move on to government procurement and then start setting embodied carbon limits for buildings. In the US the GSA’s latest pronouncement follows on from the Federal Buy Clean Initiative and from when California introduced its Buy Clean California Act in 2017. Outside of the US similar programmes have been introduced in countries including Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. On the corporate side members of the World Economic Forum’s First Movers’ Coalition have committed to purchasing or specifying volumes of LEC cement and/or concrete by 2030. Examples of whole countries actually setting embodied carbon emissions limits for non-government buildings are rarer, but some are emerging. Both France and Sweden, for example, introduced laws in 2022 that start by analysing life-cycle emissions of buildings and will move on to setting embodied carbon limits in the late 2020s. Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are also in the process of introducing similar schemes. The next big move could be in the EU, where legislators are considering embodied carbon limits for building materials as part of its ongoing revisions to its Energy Performance of Buildings Directive or the Construction Products Regulation legislations. Lobbying, debate and arguing remains ongoing at present.

To finish, Ireland-based Ecocem spent a period in the 2010s attempting to build a slag cement grinding plant at Vallejo, Solano County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. The project met with considerable local opposition on environmental grounds and was eventually refused planning permission. The irony is that slag cement is one of those SCM-style cements that Marin County, also in the San Francisco Bay Area, started encouraging the use of just a few years later. Ecocem held its inaugural science symposium in Paris this week. A number of scientists who attended the event called for existing low carbon technologies to be adopted by the cement and concrete sectors as fast as possible. One such approach is to lower the clinker factor in cement through the use of products that Ecocem and other companies sell. A point to consider is, if Marin County’s code or the GSA’s recent procurement directive came earlier, then that slag plant in Vallejo might have been built. Encouraging the use of LEC building materials by governments looks set to proliferate but it may not be a straightforward process. Clear and consistent policies will be key.

Italy: Cementir Holding raised its sales by 0.5% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2023, to Euro1.3bn. It sold 7.93Mt of cement, down by 3.1% year-on-year from 8.19Mt in the corresponding period of 2022. Cementir Holding attributed the decline to reduced demand, primarily in Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Malaysia and the US. This offset an increase in consumption in China and Türkiye. The group’s operating costs dropped by 6.6% to 1.01bn, while its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 33% to Euro321m.

Denmark: FLSmidth has appointed Christopher Ashworth as the president of its Cement division. He succeeds Asger Lauritsen, who left the post in August 2023. Group chief financial officer Roland M Andersen has acted as the interim president of FLSmidth Cement in the intervening period. Ashworth was previously the vice president and managing director of Eurotherm, a subsidiary of Schneider Electric. Prior to this he worked for Invensys and Wonderware.

Latin America: Denmark-based FLSmidth says it has been awarded a new service contract with an unnamed cement producer in Latin America. The new contract builds on an existing relationship between the two companies and will last a period of 18 months. It will cover the complete production process, from quarry to packing plant. FLSmidth says that will support the customer in improving overall equipment efficiency and thus plant productivity. The scope of supply also includes training and mentoring of plant personnel to ensure successful execution of a jointly developed strategy long after the initial period of the contract ends. No value for the deal has been disclosed.

Jose Gil, Head of Service Execution - USA and Canada, FLSmidth, said “This contract is the result of conversations inspired by a reliability audit in the third quarter of 2022. From that, an action plan was developed in which FLSmidth has responsibility for the execution of activities in operations and the customer takes care of other support areas.” He added “The result is a tailored solution, encompassing a range of factors, including maintenance, reliability and operations, that will ultimately deliver much more efficient and productive cement plants.”

Denmark: FLSmidth has signed a deal with Australia-based FCT ACTech to provide a new product for the online analysis of raw materials. Under the agreement, FLSmidth will incorporate FCT ACTech’s X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD) analysers in its new QCX Cube products. The partnership was formalised in August 2023.

Jens Asbjørn Pedersen, Global Product Manager for Sampling, Preparation and Analysis at FLSmidth, said “We are very pleased to be able to integrate FCT ACTech analyser units in our new QCX Cube analysis solutions for cement plants.” He continued, “We are starting with the launch of QCX Cube X10, which primarily targets raw meal applications, but it is our ambition to utilise FCT ACTech's innovative range of analyser units to also deliver advanced online XRD analysis solutions for clinker and cement.” He added that the company believes that such integrated solutions will provide ‘critical’ support for cement plants during the green transition, as alternative fuels and new secondary cementitious materials drive a need for further process and chemistry optimisation.

The QCX Cube X10 online elemental analyser is FLSmidth's newest analysis product for cement raw meal. Offering plug-and-play functionality, it includes sampling components, an energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analyser and a fully programmed local control system that are delivered pre-assembled in an air-conditioned container. Analysis results for calcium, silicon, aluminium and iron are provided as standard. Sodium and magnesium analysis can be provided with the addition of a helium purge, while other elements are available on request after a site-specific evaluation. The product is designed to be integrated with FLSmidth’s optimisation software QCX/BlendExpert.

FCT ACTech is the analytical instruments division of FCT International. It has developed and supplied a continuous on-stream analyser for more than two decades with products now covering raw mix, clinker quality and cement blend control.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s sales were US$1.82bn during the first half of 2023, up by 28% year-on-year from US$1.43bn in the first half of 2022. Its earnings before interest, taxation and amortisation (EBITA) fell by 7%, to US$83.1m from US$89.3m. The supplier recorded a new order intake worth US$1.64m, down by 14% from US$1.9m. New cement orders fell by 33% amid reduced demand, especially for FLSmidth’s product offering. In line with its de-risking strategy, FLSmidth continued to accept only those product orders that also supported its service business. The company maintained its guidance of cement sales of US$879m and an EBITA margin of 5.5 – 6.5% for the full-year 2023.

CEO Mikko Keto said “We have maintained the strong momentum on our key transformation efforts during the second quarter of 2023. While we have continued to progress on our MissionZero agenda, our safety performance has been unsatisfactory and mitigating actions have been taken.” Keto continued “While our cement business remains on target for the full year, its short-to-mid-term market outlook has deteriorated. Consequently, continued organisational rightsizing is required to preserve profitability. Going into the second half of the year we remain positive, with a continued strong focus on executing our core transformation efforts.”

Italy: Cementir Holding, a subsidiary of Caltagirone Group, recorded Euro841m in sales in the first half of 2023. This corresponds to year-on-year growth of 1.1% from Euro832m in the first half of 2022. The producer's earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 40% to Euro201m from Euro144m. Likewise, its net profit rose by 36% to Euro90.3m from Euro66.6m

Cementir Holding said that its cement sales volumes fell by 5.5% year-on-year during the half, to 5.1Mt. Volumes growth of 16% in China and Türkiye, and of 8% in Egypt, failed to offset a drop in Belgium, Denmark, Malaysia and the US. In Türkiye, the group increased its focus on the domestic market, and halved its export volumes. Exports also dropped in Malaysia, by 12%, as well as in Denmark.

Chair and chief executive officer Francesco Caltagirone said “The first half of 2023 closed with encouraging results, with significant increase in EBITDA, earnings before interest and taxation and net profit, thanks to careful management of profitability, which offset the general reduction in sales volumes."

Denmark: Aalborg Portland and US-based Fidelis New Energy have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on the onshore storage of captured CO₂ from the cement producer's Aalborg cement plant in North Jutland. The partners will convey captured CO₂ from the plant to Fidelis New Energy's upcoming Norne Carbon Storage Hub at East Port of Aalborg via a pipeline. The pipeline is scheduled for commissioning ahead of the launch of the Aalborg cement plant's upcoming carbon capture system in 2030. The system will capture 400,000t/yr of CO₂ from the plant's flue gases.

Fidelis New Energy's Norne Carbon Storage Hub is due to commence operations in 2026. It will have a handling capacity of 4Mt/yr of CO₂, with the possibility of subsequently expanding to 8Mt/yr.