Displaying items by tag: GCW436

Nepal: Industry experts have told the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the government should follow the existing Cement Standard 1997 because the new standard has proposed increasing the magnesium oxide and insoluble residue content of cement. They said that doing this would erode the strength of the building material, according to the Kathmandu Post newspaper. So far Nepalese cement producers have been using Indian standards instead.

The Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology had intended to examine and grade locally produced cement from mid-November 2019 but the government delayed this. The parliamentary committee plans to meet with government officials including the secretary of the Ministry of Industry and representatives of the bureau to discuss the matter further. The new Cement Standard 2019 proposes to increase the magnesium oxide content in cement from 5% to 6%. The amount of insoluble residue has been proposed to be increased by 2% to 4%.

France: Guy Sidos, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Vicat Group, has launched the company’s first cement carrier, Capo Cinto. The ship was acquired in partnership with ABCRM (Agency Bulk Chartering Vicat), according to Les Petites Affiches newspaper. The Capo Cinto will supply the Corsican ports of Bastia, Porto Vecchio, Ajaccio and Propiano with bulk and bagged cement, as well as Italy and the Mediterranean from the Grave de Peille integrated cement plant. French navy Vice Admiral Anne Cullerre was also in attendence at the launch.

The Capo Cinto, previously known as the Kurske, was built in 1997. The new name refers to Monté Cinto, the highest mountain in Corsica. The refitted carrier is 90.7m long, has a capacity of nearly 2000t and it has a self-unloader.

Azerbaijan: Akkord Cement’s Gazakh cement plant plans to export its fifth batch of clinker to Georgia. Further export operations are also planned in December 2019, according to the Trend News Agency. The integrated plant exported over 500t of clinker to Georgia during the first 11 months of 2019 and it plans to export up to 700t in 2020. The unit is aiming for a production volume of 1.2Mt in 2019 and then 1.5Mt in 2020. Turkey’s Dal Teknik Makina started work on an upgrade project at the plant in mid-2019.

Mexico: France’s Fives has issued an update on the two raw meal grinding plants it is supplying to Cruz Azul’s Hidalgo and Oaxaca Lagunas cement plants.

Construction work at the Oaxaca Lagunas plant started in August 2018. Mechanical erection of the raw materials feeding workshop and the FCB Horomill grinding circuit started in July 2019. Electrical installation is currently under progress. The raw meal grinding workshop is scheduled to be operational by the end of March 2020.

Construction work at the Hidalgo plant started in December 2018. Mechanical erection started at the end of August 2019, electrical erection works will start in December 2019. First raw meal date is scheduled by the end of May 2020.

Both orders were finalised in November 2017. The Hidalgo plant ordered a 280t/hr grinding unit and the Oaxaca Lagunas plant has ordered a 300t/hr grinding unit. Each raw grinding plant features an FCB Horomill 4000mm grinding mill, a FCB TSV Classifier 6500 mm and a FCB Aerodecantor.

Mali: Diamond Cement Mali (DCM) has signed a deal with La Société Malienne de Cartonnerie (SCS MDC) to procure 50kg bags to hold cement. DCM operates two plants in the country with a production capacity of 1Mt/yr, according to local press. It requires over 20 million bags per year. SCS MDC became operational locally in 2019. It runs a plant at Kamalé near Bamako. Moussa Silvain Diakité, the chief executive oficer (CEO) of SCS MDC described the contract as the company’s first ‘big’ deal.

Rwanda/Tanzania: Edenville Energy says it has signed a new contract to supply 6000t/month of washed coal from its Rukwa Coal Project to an end user that is expected to be a cement producer based in Rwanda. The deal has been agreed with Tara Group, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tanzanian company, Kitanyoe Group Company, which currently supplies coal, gypsum, limestone and calcite to industrial users.

The contract is of note to the development of Edenville Energy because it has the potential to open up a new transport route for the company’s coal on Lake Tanganyika to both Rwanda and Burundi. However, the proposed supply arrangement is dependent on the company securing sufficient operating capital to fund production. Edenville Energy operates a coal mine in western Tanzania.

UAE: India-based JSW Cement has applied to borrow between US$50m and US$55m from two UAE-based banks to continue development on its planned 1Mt/yr integrated Fujairah plant, the capacity of which it plans to double to 2Mt/yr within a year of its scheduled January 2020 opening. Arabian Business has reported that the loan will bring the project’s total investment to US$110m with a 30:70 equity/debt ratio. The government has granted JSW Cement a 35-year quarry lease and a licence for the extraction of up to 6Mt/yr of limestone for use at the plant, which will be served by a Terex MPS 1200t/hr crushing plant.
550 local people directly or indirectly employed in cement production at Fujairah.

Germany: Four of Europe’s leading cement producers have partnered to found and operate a 100% carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant at Schwenk Zement’s 1.0Mt/yr Mergelstetten plant in southern Germany. HeidelbergCement has announced that the catch4climate project will enter operation in 2020.

UAE: A&K International Investment has divested itself of 29% of total shares from its stake in RAK Cement to an undisclosed buyer. RAK Cement’s profit fell by 79% year-on-year to US$0.39m in the first half of 2019 from US$1.88m. Its intended purchase of an integrated cement plant and quarry in the UAE was abandoned in September 2019.

Mexico: Cemex Ventures has partnered with BCG and Tracxn to launch a list of 2019’s global 50 ‘most promising’ construction start-ups. Assessment categories were technical innovation, project management and sustainability. Companies like the UK’s Cloud Cycle, a concrete management platform provider, and the US’s Concrete Sensors, which provides remote concrete strength, temperature and relative humility measurement solutions, typify the promising developments in how the construction industry uses its cement.