Displaying items by tag: GCW543

The data on cement consumption for 2021 in Spain is out this week and it looks promising. As the national cement association Oficemen explained, last year was the sector’s best for over a decade, nearly reaching 15Mt consumption and exceeding the figure in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Oficemen also singled out particular strong performance in December 2021. It now expects this growth trend to continue into 2022 with a forecast of 5% to 15.6Mt predicted based on both domestic and infrastructure segments.

Graph 1: Cement consumption in Spain, 2012 – 2021. Source: Oficemen.

The Spanish cement industry reached a peak consumption of over 50Mt in the late 2000s before hitting a near-50 year low in the 2010s in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The market then started to recover in the second half of the 2010s until Covid-19 came along. A report on the Spanish cement market to the start of 2021 that lays out the situation can be found in the February 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine. The larger news stories since then have been Votorantim Cimentos’ growth in the market through its acquisitions of FYM and Cementos Balboa, and Çimsa Çimento’s final completion of its deal to buy the Buñol white cement plant from Cemex. Each of these stories involve an integrated cement plant changing ownership.

Looking back at Oficemen’s summary describing 2012 depicts a much different dwindling market. However, one commonality it shares with the association’s roundup for 2021 is that it complains about the country’s disadvantage in electricity costs compared to its neighbours. Back in 2012 this was framed as holding back exports. As Oficemen noted at the time it exported 5.9Mt of cement in 2012, less than half the 13Mt it exported in 1983. Jump forward to 2021 and exports are now 6.8Mt. Energy is still a key issue though. Now Oficemen’s president, José Manuel Cascajero Rodríguez, says that the sector’s production costs have increased by 25% since the latest round of electricity price rises began. He then compares the cost of energy intensive industry in Spain unfavourably against France and Germany and calls for a structural change in the Spanish electricity market to make prices more predictable. Cement producers elsewhere in Europe and beyond may share Oficemen’s concerns regard unpredictable energy prices over the last six months but electricity has been a particular issue for Spain for a long time. To take one recent local example, in November 2021 Cementos Cosmos said it was planning to scale down the production of clinker at its Córdoba cement plant as a result of the high cost of electricity.

The other issue that gets raised in Oficemen’s 2021 summary is competition from cement importers outside the European Union (EU) and the necessity of a border carbon adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to take in account carbon taxation for producers within Europe. To jump back a bit, back in May 2021 the EU Emissions trading Scheme (ETS) reached Euro50/t. Then in December 2021 Cembureau, the European cement association, published a calculation predicting that if the EU ETS CO₂ cost made it to Euro90/t then this could represent 12 - 15% of the production costs of cement producers. Well, as readers will have guessed, the EU ETS beat Euro90/t on 2 February 2022 and then rose to Euro96.7/t on 7 February 2022. Answers in an email for when readers think the EU ETS price will top Euro100/t.

All of the above feeds neatly into the week’s other big Spanish news story: Cemex and Synhelion have successfully produced clinker from concentrated solar radiation at a pilot unit at the Very High Concentration Solar Tower of IMDEA Energy near Madrid. It’s early days yet as the process needs to be scaled up but, make no mistake, this is a big story. An interview with the team behind Cemex and Synhelion’s solar concentration project can be found in the December 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine for more information. The SOLPART (Solar-Heated Reactors for Industrials Production of Reactive Particulates) project in France did similar research a few years ago but it didn’t reach the 1500°C target required to reach the sintering phase where clumps of clinker form. US-based Heliogen has been trying to industrialise concentrated solar energy but not much has been heard about its cement-industry ambitions since it said it reached temperatures of about 1000°C in 2019.

The relevance of an eventual full-scale concentrated solar unit for the entire production line or just the preheater and/or calciner at a cement plant in Spain makes considerable sense. At a stroke energy costs are reduced, diverted to a renewable source and any desired CO₂ capture becomes, in theory, easier and cheaper. Cemex said in the interview with Global Cement Magazine that the tentative next step would be a pilot unit at a cement plant, although, candidate plants could be in the US or Mexico, as well as Spain. Another side of the drive to cut energy and carbon costs can also be seen in a couple of photovoltaic solar projects supplying cement plants that were announced in 2021 for Spanish plants run by Cemex and Cementos Cosmos.

We leave the Spanish cement sector in a growth phase but with plenty of challenges ahead, not least from electricity costs and the mounting cost of carbon. Yet in common with other countries in Europe the industry faces a high-wire balancing act between staying economically viable and inching towards net zero. It’s conceivable that an industrial scale concentrated solar unit at a cement plant in Spain by 2030 might steady the wobbles along the way.

Russia: Soyuzcement, the national cement manufacturing union, has appointed Vyacheslav Shmatov as its chair. He is currently the general director of Eurocement Group and has worked in the cement industry for over 11 years. He was previously the head of BaselCement.

Germany: BWF Envirotec has appointed Nikolai Beranek as the managing director for its EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) area and South America. He succeeds Thomas Chodora in the role, who will now manage human resources on an interim basis.

Beranek has worked for BWF Group for over six years in various management positions. As Director Human Resources he was responsible for human resources and he also worked in controlling.

Chodora was previously in charge of human resources at BWF Group from 2008 to 2016. He has held management positions as managing director at BWF Profiles, responsible for plastic products and thermoformed parts, and BWF Envirotec.

Italy: Cementir’s revenue grew by 11% year-on-year to Euro1.36bn in 2021 from Euro1.22bn in 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 17.9% to Euro311m from Euro264m. Sales volumes of cement and concrete increased by 4.1% to 11.2Mt and 14.8% to 5.01Mm3 respectively.

“2021 marked for Cementir the year of the historic record of revenues and EBITDA despite the uncertainties related to the pandemic crisis, the substantial increase in energy costs, materials and services and the devaluation of the Turkish lira,” said Francesco Caltagirone Jr, chair and chief executive officer of Cementir.

The group also reviewed and approved the three-year Group Industrial Plan update for the period 2022 - 2024 and the 2022 budget. It has a target of reduce CO₂ emissions (scope 1) by 30% in 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is also planning to invest Euro116m in the 2022 – 2025 to meet this goal and others. Some of this will go towards building a new production line at its integrated Gaurain cement plant in Belgium, where the work is intended to raise the unit’s alternative fuels substitution rate to 80% from 40%. The group noted that this project has been delayed to 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Changes at other cement plants include switching to natural gas and biogas as well as energy efficiency projects. It is also said it was planning to ‘significantly’ increase the production of its FUTURECEM calcined clay cement and related sustainable products.

India: In its results for the third quarter of the 2022 financial year, HeidelbergCement India has recorded a sales decline of 9.5% year-on-year to US$71.7m from US$79.2m. Its net profit for the quarter was US$4.07m, down by 52% from US$8.51m.

India: Anjani Portland Cement recorded sales of US$14.3m in the third quarter of its 2022 financial year, up by 5.6% year-on-year from US$13.9m in the third quarter of the 2021 financial year. Its net profit was US$566,000, down by 80% from US$2.82m.

US: Lehigh Cement’s Mason City cement plant in Iowa has transitioned to Portland limestone cement (PLC) production. The plant will produce the company’s EcoCem brand PLC. It previously launched the cement in Canada in February 2021.

US: Ash Grove Cement has re-opened its Port Manatee terminal in Florida following the installation of a new Kovako type ship unloader supplied by FLSmidth. The machine was custom built for Ash Grove by the Denmark-based company to meet its specific needs. The cement producer says it is the largest mobile pneumatic ship unloader built, has twin 800hp blowers, 37m suction arm and can offload a dry bulk vessel at a high rate while maintaining maximum efficiency and minimising environmental impact by eliminating dust emissions.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the event was held on 7 February 2022 as a shipment of fly ash was processed at the site. This maiden shipment completes the Phase 1 transformation project at Port Manatee, which began in early 2021. The project is intended to improve the subsidiary of CRH’s capacity to import cement, slag and fly ash for customers in Florida and South Georgia. It is also planning to use the terminal’s existing silo capacity to complement the capabilities of Ash Grove’s cement plants in Sumterville and Branford.

Canada: TransAlta Corporation has secured a contract to supply 100Gwh/yr of wind power to Lafarge Canada’s Exshaw, Alberta. The power will cover an estimated 25% of the plant’s electricity needs.

Lafarge Western Canada’s head of sustainability and environment Cailee Ellis said “This agreement, first of its kind for Lafarge in Alberta, is an important step to utilising higher amounts of renewable electricity at our facilities.”

Togo: Cimenterie de la Côte ouest-africaine’s (CimCo) new 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant in Lomé is preparing to produce its first cement in March 2022. Germany-based Intercem Engineering says that construction work has been completed on the project and that the cladding is in place. Currently, the cold commissioning is in progress. The plant will operate as a subsidiary of CimMetal Group.