Displaying items by tag: Eqiom

France: Cement producer Eqiom has inaugurated a €2.5m pilot station for the continuous injection of alternative fuels at its Rochefort-sur-Nenon plant. The new facility enables the injection of wood fines - treated wood residues sourced from local sawmills - directly into the kiln at a rate of 5000t/yr.

The facility has reduced its coal use from 30,000t/yr to 8000t/yr. Currently, more than 70% of the plant’s kiln fuel comes from alternative sources, with the site now targeting 80%. Since the 1990s, the plant has successively used liquid chemical waste, animal meal and solid recovered fuels (SRF), which together accounted for 50,000t in 2024. Eqiom is also developing new cement types with lower clinker content by incorporating more pozzolans, as part of its broader decarbonisation efforts.

Pierre Bernard, Eqiom’s head of cement manufacturing, noted that national cement production fell from 20Mt/yr in 2022 to 15Mt/yr in 2024, equivalent to 1960 levels, due to a decline in construction activity.

France: 80 FNSCBA-CGT (National Federation of Construction, Wood and Furniture Workers) members protested outside CRH subsidiary Eqiom’s Lumbres cement plant in northern France to denounce the ‘outrageous’ working and living conditions of Chinese workers employed there, according to construction union BWI.

Eqiom signed a contract with China-based firm CBMI, which employed 250 Chinese workers to upgrade the plant by building a low-carbon kiln to reduce CO₂ emissions and energy consumption, which reportedly cost more than €200m. However, there are claims that the workers live in a campsite near the cement plant, sleeping in ‘overcrowded’ tents and working 12 hours a day, six days a week. The protesters have called for the full enforcement of French labour legislation and transparency regarding the Chinese workers’ wages and working conditions.

FNSCBA-CGT general secretary Mathieu Dougoud said “We cannot remain silent on the exploitation of foreign workers. It is important to stand up to defend these workers, their jobs and our national collective agreements. We only urge Eqiom to provide the documents certifying that these Chinese workers are indeed under the aegis of the French labour code.”

In a statement sent to Global Cement Eqiom said "The K6 project is carried out in strict compliance with all applicable French legislation, including labour law, and in line with the values of our company. The latest checks carried out by the competent authorities attest that the project is in full compliance with French law."

France: CBMI has completed installation of a new rotary kiln at Eqiom’s Lumbres plant for the ‘K6 Project’. The plant is now reportedly carbon-neutral and is equipped with an oxyfuel kiln to reduce CO₂ emissions. The supplier said via social media that its team ‘delivered precise execution despite tight space and complex challenges’.

Eqiom announced back in 2024 that it would upgrade the Lumbres plant to expand its capacity and reduce emissions by 20% by 2026.

France: Eqiom has awarded Fives FCB a contract to upgrade its cement grinding plant at Héming. The project involves integrating an FCB TSV 4000 TSF Classifier and an FCB TGT Filter with the existing milling circuit at the unit operating by the subsidiary of Ireland-based CRH. The upgrade is intended to reduce the plant’s clinker factor, improve the quality of the cements produced, offer the option of manufacturing cements with higher fineness and reduce energy consumption. The new equipment is expected to be tied-in during the plant’s annual mill shutdown in 2025, with commissioning to follow.

France: The Eqiom Lumbres cement plant, part of CRH, has commissioned ThyssenKrupp Polysius to construct a fine grinding plant. The new plant will include the Polysius booster mill and the Sepol ultra-fine classifier, along with necessary auxiliary equipment. ThyssenKrupp Polysius is set to deliver the equipment by late summer 2025, aiming for commissioning in the fourth quarter of 2025. It will also provide on-site service and technical support for performance optimisation.

Project Manager Layal Haddad said "We are proud to be contributing to decarbonisation with the ultra-fine grinding plant and reducing the CO₂ footprint of cement. This is the first ultra-fine grinding plant based on a Polysius booster mill to be sold worldwide. We look forward to a successful project together with the Eqiom/CRH team."

Heidelberg Materials announced this week that it is preparing to close its integrated cement plants at Beffes and Villiers-au-Bouin in France by October 2025. It framed the restructuring as a response to ‘a significant decline in cement sales in France’ and a plan to focus on low-carbon products. Unfortunately, local media reported that around 170 jobs will be lost at the two sites. The company says it is looking at ‘socially acceptable solutions’ including redeployment to other locations in the country.

Investment has been forthcoming from Heidelberg Materials France in recent years. It reminded everyone that it initiated a Euro400m scheme at its France-based subsidiary Ciments Calcia in late 2020. Most of this was earmarked towards a new production line at the Airvault plant, which is currently being built. Other schemes at the Beaucaire, Bussac-Forêt and Couvrot integrated plants followed. More recently, Heidelberg Materials launched a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project at Airvault, part of the GOCO2 initiative, with the aim of starting initial capture in 2030 with full 1Mt/yr capture planned later. What the company didn’t mention though was at the time of that 2020 investment it was also preparing to convert the integrated Gargenville plant into a grinding unit, stop white cement production at its Cruas plant with the intention of turning the site into a terminal and it wanted to reduce its workforce by around 140. To be fair to Heidelberg Materials though, it did have the same goal of reducing its specific net CO₂ emissions. The added detail this week was that the group aims to generate half of its revenue from sustainable products that are either low-carbon or circular by 2030.

Heidelberg Materials France is not alone with its ambitions for low-carbon products. Holcim notably opened in early 2023 what it said was the first calcined clay unit in Europe at its Saint-Pierre-la-Cour cement plant. Heidelberg Materials then followed in May 2023 with the announcement of a calcined clay project at its Bussac-Forêt cement plant. Other clay projects from Vicat, NeoCem and Neo-Eco have been reported since then. The other prominent France-based blended cement producer that has steadily been building its business in recent years is Hoffmann Green Cement. More general plant upgrade projects that are also worth mentioning include Eqiom’s (CRH) upgrade to its Lumbres plant in February 2024 and the ignition of a new kiln at Lafarge France’s Martres-Tolosane plant in October 2023. Both of these projects have been framed as driving sustainability.

Graph 1: Cement production in France, 2014 - 2022. Source: France Ciment.

Heidelberg Materials’ assessment about the poor state of the cement market has been confirmed by local media. Sales reportedly started falling in 2022, were down by 6% year-on-year in 2023 and further downward pressure is expected in 2024. Production data shown in Graph 1 above released by France Ciment, the national cement association, doesn’t really show what has been happening with sales. Over the last 20 years production hit a high of around 22Mt in the mid-2000s before settling around 16 - 17Mt/yr from 2015 onwards. The more telling trend, perhaps, has been the increase in CEM II blended cements from 50% in 2012 to 64% in 2022. Cement production may have stayed roughly the same over the last decade but it is using less clinker than it used to. Hence the pressure on companies like Ciments Calcia to reduce clinker capacity.

A further cost pressure facing cement producers in France is the impending end to the price cap on electricity scheduled by the end of 2025. The government enacted the scheme in late 2021 at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, but then carried on as energy prices spiked following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. France Ciment lobbied in August 2023 for further protection for the sector using the argument that decarbonisation was not possible without electricity available for a reasonable price. It added that decarbonising the cement sector in France with carbon capture would cost around Euro3.5bn. Electricity prices started rising in February 2024 as part of the government’s phase out of the scheme.

Finally, 17 people were arrested on 5 April 2024 in connection with a demonstration at Lafarge France’s Val-de-Reuil ready-mixed concrete plant in Eure. Environmental activists reportedly trespassed on the site, according to local press, causing an estimated Euro450,000 in damages with acts such as spraying foam into machinery, ripping up bags of cement, breaking windows and more. The activists presented their actions as a response to both the environmental impact of cement and concrete production and the ongoing legal allegations about Lafarge’s actions in Syria in the early 2010s. Lafarge France’s La Malle integrated plant was also similarly targeted in December 2022 when around 200 activists stormed the site and caused damage to machinery and property. Lafarge’s response at the time was to remark that there was a feeling of misunderstanding given that the La Malle plant was piloting various decarbonisation methods.
All of this presents a febrile picture of the cement sector in France. Sales are down, electricity costs are set to go up and producers are switching to low-carbon cement products. Alongside this they are also closing clinker production plants but are also investing in new decarbonisation projects. At the same time environmental protestors have also been targeting cement and concrete plants and Lafarge’s association with its former actions in Syria appear to have made it more of a target than the other manufacturers. It is unsurprising then that Holcim, the parent company of Lafarge France, has raised the risk of damage to the group’s reputation, with both the general public and investors, should it fail to meet its targets. Reaching net zero was never going to be easy but setting unrealistic targets is increasingly not an option.

France: Eqiom plans to expand its Lumbres cement plant by 57% from 700,000t/yr to 1.1Mt/yr by 2026. The project involves the installation of a new kiln and aims to reduce the plant's CO₂ emissions by 20%, its fuel consumption by 35% and its NO_x and SO₂ emissions by 40% and 80% respectively. The producer plans to invest €300m, including €40m from France Relance funds.

France: CRH subsidiary Eqiom has commenced the first phase of its K6 decarbonisation project at its Lumbres cement plant in Hauts-de-France. In this phase, the producer will build a new production line that uses alternative fuels. This will reduce the plant’s specific CO₂ emissions per tonne of clinker by 20%. Eqiom says that this will pave the way for future carbon capture efforts at the plant, with a view to achieving net zero CO₂ clinker production.

Ireland: Ecocem has appointed Jaouad Nadah as its Innovation Project Manager. He will be responsible for the coordination of the company’s ACT technology as it scales up development. This will include supporting a range of partnerships under development by Ecocem across Europe and beyond. Nadah previously worked for CRH-subsidiary Eqiom and Holcim, with a focus on innovation in the low carbon cement market. Ecocem launched ACT in late 2022. It says it is an alternative materials-based cement ingredient capable of reducing the CO₂ emissions of cement production by up to 70%.

France: CRH subsidiary Eqiom expects to complete its carbon capture system installation and kiln upgrade at its Lumbres cement plant under the EU's K6 Programme in early 2028. The project uses Air Liquide's capture technology, whereby purified CO₂ is liquefied for storage or use in building materials production.