Displaying items by tag: GCW138

Egypt: Suez Cement and Italcementi inaugurated the first waste treatment plant in Egypt on 16 February 2014 with a Euro5m investment.

The project is part of the Suez Cement strategy to increase the amount of energy that it gets from fuel derived from waste. The project uses 45,000t of household waste to produce 35,000t of alternative fuel annually. "The project will use the latest equipment and technologies available in this area," said Egypt's minister of Environment, Laila Eskander.

Egypt's Ministry of Environmental Affairs opposes the import of coal due to its negative effects on the environment and public health. Coal is not among the alternatives for solving the energy crisis in Egypt, according to Eskander. "Suez Cement has been suffering from an energy crisis, yet it decided to respect the Egyptian laws and to contribute to solving the problem of waste as well," said Eskander.

Indonesia: FLSmidth has received a Euro42m order from Indonesian cement producer PT Semen Gresik for a greenfield cement plant with a capacity of 8000t/day. The new plant will be located just outside of the city of Rembang in the north east of Java, Indonesia.

The order comprises equipment for the main part of the production line, including a raw mill, coal mill, preheater, kiln, burner, clinker cooler and silo equipment as well as a complete control system for the entire plant. The order will be booked by the Cement Division and will contribute beneficially to FLSmidth's earnings until the end of 2015.

The new cement plant will be PT Semen Gresik's fifth production line. FLSmidth has supplied the company's four other production lines that are located in Tuban, Java. PT Semen Gresik is part of the PT Semen Indonesia Group, which currently has a total capacity of 30Mt/yr of cement from all of its plants.

"This is the second order to FLSmidth from the PT Semen Indonesia Group within two months and we are happy to continue our long successful partnership with the group," said president of the Cement Division, Per Mejnert Kristensen.

Kenya: The Kenyan government has halted the appointment of Bill Lay to the chairmanship of the East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) just hours after his appointment.

The current chairman, Mark Karbolo, went to court to block Lay's appointment, claiming that he still has seven months in office. He added that he would be content to leave after finishing his term but not to be bundled out as if he had run down the company. "I still have seven months to go. I will be glad to call it a day when I have served my term," said Karbolo. "I am and remain to be the bona fide chairman of the EAPCC, with the support of the shareholders, majority of directors and the personal," he added.

Lay had earlier thanked president Uhuru Kenyatta for giving him the opportunity to serve the country in the capacity of chairman of EAPCC. However, EAPCC's board rejected Lay's appointment as director when the government tried to introduce him late in 2013 as a director to the company.

Slovenia: A local environmental non-government organisation (NGO), Eko Krog, which has been fighting Lafarge in the city of Trbovlje for years, has launched a challenge to the environmental permit issued to Lafarge in January 2014.

Eko Krog stated that that the basis for issuing the environmental permit for the operations of the cement factory was flawed and that the permit will result in new pollution in the Trbovlje valley. It has appealed to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment, which will now have to review the Environment Agency's (ARSO) decision to issue the permit.

ARSO said that the permit for unlimited cement production at the plant meets EU rules. However, Eko Krog has branded the decision was flawed, as key potential emissions were omitted, including those generated at the nearby quarry. Eko Krog also claimed that the documentation for the permit contains other flaws, including the failure to respect all of the recommendations of internationally-adopted standards for use of the best technology in the cement industry.

It is unclear how long the review of the permit by the relevant ministry will take, but Eko Krog has already once succeeded in having Lafarge stripped of the permit. Lafarge first received the permit in 2009, at which time it had invested Euro33m in upgrades, but its plans to use alternative fuels in its kiln subsequently prompted anger among locals and led to the successful challenge of the permit by Eko Krog in 2011. As a result, the plant had to scale down operations, making the January 2014 decision by the Environment Agency a major victory for Lafarge.

The plant responded to the decision by labelling it a first step in restarting cement production and obtaining a permit for the use of alternative fuels, which would be crucial for Lafarge's sustainability in Slovenia.

Canada: Quebec's US$350m investment in a new cement plant from Bombardier's founding family in the job-starved Gaspé region is a 'terrible deal' that could end up being a 'financial sinkhole' for taxpayers, according to the Province's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) opposition party.

CAQ has called on Quebec to renegotiate the agreement with McInnis Cement, which is owned by the Bombardier-Beaudoin family. The party said that it saw a copy of the confidential agreement and that private investors, notably the family, are only putting in US$62m of money to gain majority control of the project, while Quebec will contribute several times that amount but will only get a minority stake.

In January 2014 McInnis announced plans for a US$1bn cement plant in Port-Daniel-Gascons that would produce 2.2Mt/yr of cement, largely for export by ship to the US. The project was being billed as a saviour for the chronically under-employed Gaspé region because it will support 1500 construction jobs and provide work for 200 permanent plant employees.

CAQ said that Pauline Marois's Parti Québécois government had by-passed Investissement Québec, the province's investment arm and ordered that the money be disbursed without analysis by Investissement's board. Quebec confirmed that it would provide McInnis with an interest-bearing loan of US$250m and take a US$100m equity stake in the company.

The federal government also contributed US$100m to the project through split participation by Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada. This is senior-ranking debt, to be repaid first in the event of a default, and part of a larger banking group that included National Bank.

"The federal government decided that it couldn't risk taking equity or subordinate debt like Quebec did," said CAQ economy and external trade critic Stéphane Le Bouyonnec. "The reason is simple; the industry is already in a situation of overcapacity. We predict that this transaction could become a financial sinkhole, a disaster for the government of Quebec."

A December 2013 study on the cement market by independent economist Colin Sutherland concluded that adding McInnis's capacity to the mix could delay the return of a healthy supply-demand balance in north-eastern North America well beyond the expected date of 2021. At the moment, Quebec has about 1.2Mt/yr of unused capacity while eastern Pennsylvania and New York have about 0.6Mt/yr, meaning many plants are operating well below maximum volume.

"The rationale for this deal is not sound," said Michael McSweeney, president of the Cement Association of Canada. "When this project goes ahead, it will just shift jobs from other parts of Quebec to the Gaspé."

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois defended the agreement, calling it a 'good project' in which the government is demanding a higher interest rate than normal because it understands the risk.

The McInnis Cement announcement of 31 January 2014 can be found here.