Displaying items by tag: France

France: Vicat recorded full-year consolidated sales of Euro2.81bn in 2020, up by 2% year-on-year from Euro2.74bn in 2019. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 6% to Euro557m from Euro526m. Consolidated net income rose by 8% to Euro172m from Euro160m.

The group said that organic sales were ‘strong,’ rising in all regions except in France, by 6% in total. It attributed the decline to a near-total shutdown due to the coronavirus outbreak in mid-March 2020, which lifted incrementally throughout the first half of the year. Vicat France’s cement business recovered ‘robustly’ in the second half of 2020, resulting in an operational sales increase of 3% for the year. Full stoppages of activity lasted for 33 days in India and for 30 days in Italy. Despite these challenges, business growth, cost-cutting and lower energy costs drove earnings growth, with ‘very sharp improvements’ recorded in the Americas and in Asia. Additionally, the ramp-up of a new grinding plant in Mali and production performance improvements in Senegal supported a ‘significant’ earnings increase in Africa.

Chair and chief executive officerGuy Sidos said, “Thanks to our employees’ tremendous efforts and commitment, the Vicat group strengthened its position amid the unprecedented current pandemic situation. Our resilience and flexibility allowed us to make organisational changes in order to reconcile our competing imperatives of keeping everyone safe and healthy, unlocking savings and making rapid adjustments, such as relocating our Paris head office to L’Isle d’Abeau in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Likewise, we made improvements to Vicat’s governance and stepped up our environmental and digital transformation programmes. Given the strength of our cash generation, we were able to resume key productivity investment programmes for the future. Despite the adversity we faced, our teams across all our various regions successfully delivered higher production efficiency levels and met market demand cost-effectively, paving the way for a solid increase in the Vicat group’s results.”

In 2021, the group plans to expand cement production and invest in new cement terminals in India and to continue with the upgrade of its Ragland cement plant in the US. It also says that it will ramp up projects aimed at meeting its carbon footprint reduction targets. The group expects its earnings to rise at constant scope and exchange rates over the full year.

US: France-based Vicat subsidiary National Cement Company of Alabama has completed the installation of a new 5000t/day clinker line at its Ragland, Alabama cement plant. The line has a raw meal capacity of 13,000t.

Vicat engineering senior vice president Jean-Claude Brocheton congratulated the installation team on the ‘major step’ and on completing the work ahead of schedule.

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France plans to stop cement production at its integrated Contes cement plant in Alpes-Maritimes department and convert the site into a terminal instead. France Bleu radio has reported that the company has announced the loss of 65 jobs. The company promised to take measures to avoid forced redundancies, including offering positions at other Lafarge France sites and help with retraining. The union representing workers at the plant says that the total number of jobs at risk is 300. The producer said that its Bouc-Bel-Air (La Malle) integrated cement plant in Bouches-du-Rhône department near Marseille will provide jobs for truck drivers and subcontractors. It said, “This will require additional industrial maintenance and increase logistics needs. These jobs are not threatened, they should even develop."

Six workers will stay on at the Contes facility after the end of cement production.

France: HGH Group has appointed Vincent Leboucher as president. He succeeds Thierry Campos who is retiring after being in the post since 2001.

Leboucher, aged 40 years, graduated from the Institut d'Optique Graduate School in 2002 and joined HGH in 2003 as an electro-optics engineer. His progression within the company saw him take on the position of Head of Research & Development in 2010 and Deputy General Manager in 2018.

During Campos’ time leading HGH the company launched its Wide Area Surveillance product line and the development of its international sales with growth in Asia and North America. In 2016, HGH acquired the electro-optics test and measurement specialist Electro Optical Industries in California, US. Then in 2018 the Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in the group.

HGH was founded in 1982. It develops and sells optoelectronic and infrared systems and software for surveillance applications, test and measurement and industrial thermography in different end-markets. The company operates two research and development and assembly sites in the Optics Valley near Paris, France and in California, US. The company provides solutions to clients across 40 countries through two recognised brands, HGH Infrared Systems and Electro Optical Industries (EOI).

France: Fives has refurbished a rotary kiln at SOKA’s (Société Kaolinière Armoricaine) kaolin plant at Quessoy. Work on the project included: implementing a new nose-ring fitted with a downstream seal, to reduce false air flow and improve brick-lining lifetime; machining the tyres, replacing of the rollers and installing a new lubrication system, to improve the kiln scanning and enable an homogenous wear of the contact areas; and installing a grease spraying system fitted with a new girth gear housing to prevent advanced wear initiated by grease contamination. SOKA specialises in the extraction, processing and calcination of raw kaolin, refined kaolin and calcined kaolin in France and Ukraine.

France: Mexico-based Cemex has sold 24 concrete plants and an aggregates quarry in southeast France to Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim. Finalisation of the deal is expected in April 2021 and no approval by competition bodies is required. No value for the sale has been disclosed. The group said that the divestment is part of its strategy of focused portfolio development into high-growth markets.

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France has completed the renovation of its 70m³/hr Larrieu concrete plant in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne Department. The renovated facility is equipped with six cement silos, two of which are dedicated to low-carbon cements for the production of ECOPact low-carbon concrete. It also has eight aggregate hoppers, including one dedicated to recycled concrete aggregates, and two mixer loading stations with forward truck access for safety. The total cost of the upgrade was Euro3m.

Haute-Garonne sector head Vincent Pelloquin praised the project’s speed and ability to rebuild the concrete plant in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lafarge France is presently engaged in a systematic modernisation of its concrete plants.

France: Fives has selected Wallix’s Wallix Inside software to improve the online security of its subsidiary Fives Cortx’s industrial data products. The supplier says that this will give cement plant users secure access to energy bills, cost optimisation, site maintenance and production line analytics.

Fives CortX chief executive officer David Zak said, “Fives provides flexible and tailored solutions to optimise industrial sites’ production and maintenance by capitalising on field data. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the core of our systems and cybersecurity at the forefront of our minds. Therefore, we ensure the security of flows and data by design. With the solution Wallix Inside, we incorporate the best technologies in our solutions to guarantee an increased level of security between connected machines and our Gateway Internet of Things (IOT), enabling our clients to fully enter Industry 4.0.”

France: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Ciments Calcia has presented plans of a proposed Euro300m upgrade of its Airvault cement plant in Deux-Sèvres Department to the local community. The La Nouvelle République newspaper has reported that the company will replace the plant’s existing two production lines with a single one. It also plans to upgrade grinding and mixing equipment.

Local mayor Olivier Fouillet said, "In view of its economic, social and environmental character, this project is of public interest. It will help maintain an existing site that provides direct and indirect jobs and will further boost the economy of the territory. This project will also have the interest of meeting societal expectations on decarbonisation . It is thus an asset for the territory while being part of environmental policies to reduce the carbon footprint.” He added that the project will help the plant to meet the decarbonisation and competitiveness challenges of ‘today and tomorrow.’

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has begun construction of its second cement plant, called H2. The company will build the plant next to its existing H1 plant in Bournezeau, Vendée, using its clinker-free cement made from blast furnace slag, clay and gypsum. It will have a capacity of 250,000t/yr and cost Euro22m.

Co-founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann said “This second plant is a key milestone in our development plan in order to increase our production capacity. H2 will enable us to address the growing demand for our clinker-free low-carbon cement, as we have recently signed a number of partnerships with key construction players such as Groupe GCC, KP1, Capremib, Cemex and Eiffage Génie Civil. We would like to congratulate our teams, as this second plant is the result of a multitude of challenges taken up in 2020 in order to increase production capacity. It is the rare combination of an exceptional industrial performance and a minimised environmental impact. This structure demonstrates our industrial excellence and perfectly and genuinely materialises our intent to decarbonise the construction sector.”

Head of new construction Olivier Lefelle said “This second plant represents a major and structuring step. The choice of a vertical model for the mixing tower is an innovative concept in the construction sector and is perfectly in line with Hoffmann Green’s responsible vision. Furthermore, by using Hoffmann cement for its construction, this building site will enable CO₂ emissions to be reduced by around 20,000t.”