Displaying items by tag: Heidelberg Materials

Heidelberg Materials announced this week that it had received the funding clearance to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS) unit at its Padeswood cement plant in Cymru (also known as Wales). Construction on the project will start later in 2025 with net zero cement production expected in 2029. The upgrade will be the group’s first full-scale carbon capture facility. It will capture around 0.8Mt/yr of CO₂ at the site or around 95% of the CO₂ emissions from the process. As the captured emissions will also include biogenic CO₂ from biomass fuels - including domestic food, wood and paper wastes - cement produced at the plant could potentially be net negative.

Just like Heidelberg Material’s first large-scale CCS project at the Brevik cement plant in Norway, the work at Padeswood is part of a larger government-backed decarbonisation cluster. In this case it’s the HyNet North West project. Captured CO₂ from Padeswood will be transported via an underground pipeline for storage under the seabed in Liverpool Bay. The wider cluster will also produce, transport and store hydrogen. A waste-to-energy company Encyclis also announced this week that it had also agreed terms with the government for its Protos CCS project.

It is worth noting the differences between Heidelberg Material’s first two large-scale CCS projects. Padeswood, like Brevik, will use an amine-based carbon capture system but the technology is likely to be provided by a different supplier. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Worley were awarded the contract for the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) phase of the project in 2024 with the intention of using MHI’s Advanced KM CDR Process. The funding model is also different for Padeswood. In Norway the original estimate was that over three-quarters of the carbon capture unit would be paid for using state aid and over two-thirds of the funding for the transport and storage of CO₂ would come from the government. Large sums of government grant funding could be seen entering Heidelberg Materials’ balance sheet in 2024 for example. By contrast, Heidelberg Materials says it has agreed a ‘contract for difference’ (CFD) with the UK government. Under the terms of this contract the cement company will provide the upfront investment to build the project and will also be responsible for any additional costs over the agreed contract price. The CFD will likely track the carbon price in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The wider picture is that the UK government allocated just under €25bn in late 2024 towards two decarbonisation clusters with the funding to be made available over 25 years. However, the completion date for the Padeswood CCS of 2029 is, coincidentally, the latest year by which the next UK parliamentary election could be held. The incumbent Labour party is currently behind in the polls to the populist Reform UK party. The deputy leader of the latter said that his party would cut all "net stupid zero" policies if they entered government. It is likely that the arrangement between Heidelberg Materials and the UK government is legally binding for decades to come with provision for all sorts of eventualities. Yet readers may recall the decision by the second Trump administration in the US to cancel funding for various carbon capture projects including at least one cement project. There is also opposition from various groups in the UK to carbon capture generally and from some groups to HyNet specifically. HyNot, for example, applied for a judicial review in August 2025 challenging the government’s decision to allow Italy-based Eni to store carbon dioxide in Liverpool Bay.

Another issue is that UK cement production dropped to 7.3Mt in 2024, the lowest level since 1950. The impending carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), due in 2027, should help local producers fight off imports but if the market stays down then the production base may need to be rationalised. A cement plant with a new CCS unit linked to the government’s flagship decarbonisation cluster doesn’t seem an obvious choice for closure anytime soon though.

From here it’s all about building new carbon capture projects at different cement plants in different locations with different technologies and so on to determine what works and what doesn’t. A major part of this phase is deciding what kind of government involvement fits and trying it out over the coming years. To end, a CCS project in the north of the UK is poignant given that the Industrial Revolution started here in the late 18th Century. ‘Pob lwc’ (good luck) to all concerned!

UK: Heidelberg Materials has reached a Final Investment Decision (FID) with the UK Government for its carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the Padeswood cement works in north Wales, clearing the way for construction to begin later in 2025.

Energy Minister Michael Shanks announced the decision today, which will enable Heidelberg Materials to produce net-zero cement by 2029. The project will capture around 0.8Mt/yr of CO₂, approximately 95% of emissions from the cement works, and transport them via pipeline for storage under Liverpool Bay as part of the HyNet North West project.

Simon Willis, CEO of Heidelberg Materials UK, said “Our constructive partnership with the UK Government has allowed us to reach this major milestone, which is fantastic news, not just for us, but for the industry as a whole. Our new facility at Padeswood will be a world-leader. It will allow us to produce evoZero carbon captured net zero cement, which will help the UK construction industry reach its decarbonisation aims.”

The project is expected to create 50 new jobs, and generate up to 500 more during construction. It is the UK’s first full-scale CCS project for cement and follows Heidelberg Materials’ recent success in Norway, where it launched the world’s first carbon capture facility at its Brevik cement plant in June 2025. Here, 50% of the plant’s emissions are being captured as part of the Norwegian government’s Longship programme.

The UK-based Mineral Products Association (MPA) has celebrated this step, with Dr Diana Casey, Executive Director for Energy and Climate Change, Cement and Lime, saying “The green light for the UK’s first carbon capture-enabled cement plant at Padeswood is a landmark step on the road to decarbonising our domestic cement industry – it will safeguard existing skilled jobs and create new opportunities too. Public investment in this project provides a strong vote of confidence in the technology and recognises the vital role cement plays in supporting economic growth while delivering on the transition to net zero. Decarbonising heavy industry is not only essential for meeting climate goals, but also for securing the future of communities across the country – today’s announcement delivers on both.”

There have been a few burner and related stories to note in the cement industry news this week. Firstly, Canada-based PyroGenesis announced that it had signed a deal with an unnamed-European cement company to supply a plasma torch system for a ‘calcination furnace.’ Around the same time UBE Mitsubishi Cement (MUCC) revealed that it had successfully tested natural gas co-firing at MUCC’s Kyushu Plant using a newly developed burner.

The PyroGenesis project is a potential game-changer for the sector because it alters the way cement production lines are heated. Roughly one third of CO₂ emissions associated with cement manufacture arise from the fossil fuels used to heat the kiln and the pre-calcination system. Cut out some of that and the specific CO₂ emissions of cement production drop. PyroGenesis’ approach uses electricity to generate high-temperature plasma. This then gives the cement plant the option of obtaining its electricity from renewable sources. PyroGenesis signed a memorandum of understanding with the power conversion division of GE Vernova in March 2025. This had the aim of targeting high temperature processes, such as cement production, with electric plasma torches. The current deal with a cement producer has been valued at US$871,000 with delivery to the client scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.

We don’t know who the mystery client might be. However, Heidelberg Materials reportedly operated a 300kW plasma-heated cement kiln at its Slite cement plant in February 2025 as part of the ELECTRA project. The producer said it had achieved 54 hours of continuous operation, with 60% CO₂ concentration in the flue gas. The aim was to reach 99%. It then said that it was planning to build a larger 1MWel furnace at its Skövde cement plant in 2026 with tests to continue in 2027. In an interview with Global Cement Magazine in May 2025, Heidelberg Materials said that it was using commercially supplied CO₂ as the ionising gas in the plasma generator but that it was considering using captured CO₂ from the production process in the future. It also mentioned issues from its trials such as the effective ‘flame’ being hotter than the conventional process but not as long. This increased the reactivity of the resulting clinker. Finally, Heidelberg Materials noted from a feasibility study that a 1Mt/yr cement plant would need around 170MW of plasma generation, but that typical plasma generators topped out at around 8MW. Hence, any full set-up would likely require multiple plasma generators. For more on non-combustion style kilns see GCW561.

UBE Mitsubishi Cement’s burner installation is more conventional but again it is concerned about sustainability. In this case the line has tested burning natural gas. The cement producer says it is the first such installation at a cement plant in Japan to do so commercially. The burner was jointly developed by UBE Mitsubishi Cement, Osaka Gas and Daigas Energy. Firstly, the plant will consider switching to natural gas. This will reduce the unit’s CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion. However, a later step being considered is to move on to e-methane. This is a synthetic methane made from CO₂ and hydrogen using renewable energy.

Finally, another recent story on this theme is the installation of a new satellite burner by Northern Ireland-based Mannok at its Derrylin cement plant in August 2025. This is Phase One of a two-part project to upgrade the pyro kiln system at the site. The cement company worked with FLSmidth on the €2.5m upgrade. The new burner has now allowed the plant to burn solid recovered fuel (SRF) by up to a 30% substitution rate in the kiln. This followed a project, also with FLSmidth, to install a FuelFlex Pyrolyzer in 2022. This is used to replace coal with SRF in the pre-calcination stage of cement production. Phase two will be an upgrade of the main burner to a new Jetflex burner. Once this part is completed, Mannok is aiming for an overall substitution rate of 65 - 70% on the whole pyro-processing system.

Burners at cement plants are replaced fairly commonly. However, the supplier companies don’t advertise every installation due to the commercial relationships with their clients and other factors. Hence the more interesting upgrades tend to get the publicity. Typically this means if a burner uses new technology, meets sustainability goals and so on, we find out about it. It’s a similar situation when a new heating technology such as plasma is trialled. Changing trends in fuel types for cement plants suggest different types of conventional burners. Some of this can be seen in the burner stories above with the trend moving towards ever higher rates of alternative fuels usage. Combustion in cement kilns is here to stay for the time being but plasma trials will be watched carefully.

The 18th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition on alternative fuels for cement and lime 2025 will take place in Milan on 17 - 18 September 2025

India: Kanodia Cement has appointed Anurag Srivastava as its CEO, according to the Economic Times newspaper.

Srivastava started his career in telecoms before joining Jaiprakash Associates in 2010. He later became the Business Unit Head - Sales & Marketing for Heidelberg Materials in central India in 2015 before joining Wonder Cement in 2017. He became the Executive Vice President (S&M) at Wonder Cement in 2022. Srivastava holds a PhD in Business, Management, Marketing and Related Drivers from the Faculty of Management Studies and a master’s of business administration from the Indian Institute of Management.

Norway: TotalEnergies, Equinor and Shell have announced that the first CO₂ volumes were transported by ship from Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik cement plant to Northern Lights’ Øygarden facilities. They were then injected 2600m under the seabed, 100km off the coast of western Norway. Phase one of the project has a storage capacity of 1.5Mt/yr. A second phase, approved in March 2025, will expand capacity to more than 5Mt/yr from 2028.

TotalEnergies’ senior vice president of carbon neutrality Arnaud Le Foll said “With the start of operations of Northern Lights, we are entering a new phase for the CCS industry in Europe. This industry now moves to reality, offering hard-to-abate sectors a credible and tangible way to reduce CO₂ emissions.”

Germany: A major clean-up operation is underway at Heidelberg Materials’ Burglengenfeld plant in Bavaria following a fire on 17 August 2025. The fire began in the plant’s waste plastic fuel storage hall and was attended by more than 340 firefighters, who managed to prevent it spreading to other areas of the plant. Waste plastic is the Burglengenfeld plant’s main fuel.

The damage is nevertheless considerable, amounting at least to ‘ hundreds of thousands of Euros,’ according to plant manager Bernhard Reindl. He also announced that a structural engineer will inspect the hall's structure in the coming days. It is already clear that the roof will have to be at least partially dismantled and replaced.

However, despite the disruption, cement production has been able to continue, with lignite being used on a temporary basis until the waste plastic fuel facility is repaired. The kiln is reported to be operating at 80% of its usual capacity.

How the fire in the warehouse started remains unclear, but Reindl suspects a smouldering fire, similar to a considerably smaller one that affected the same building in October 2024. Burglengenfeld police station has begun an investigation into the cause.

Tanzania: Elsawy Ahmed has resigned as the manager of Twiga Cement’s Wazo Hill plant. He had been in post at the subsidiary of Heidelberg Materials since 2017. He is now working as a technical consultant.

Elsawy started his career as a Quality Control Supervisor for Assiut Cement in Egypt. He later worked for Cemex Egypt and became a plant manager for Cemex in Bangladesh in the early 2000s. He joined Italcementi in 2006 becoming Maintenance & Project Manager for subsidiary Suez Cement in the mid-2010s. Elsawy holds a degree in chemistry from Assiut University.

Germany: Heidelberg Materials revenue grew by 4% year-on-year to €10.4bn in the first half of 2025 from €9.99bn in the same period in 2024. Its result from current operations before depreciation and amortisation (RCOBD) rose by 5.6% to €1.93bn from €1.83bn. By region revenue and RCOBD rose everywhere except for Pacific Asia and North America respectively.

Dominik von Achten, chair of Heidelberg Materials, said “Next to price adjustments, our strict cost management has proven particularly effective in the second quarter. Our ongoing Transformation Accelerator initiative is fully on track and has helped us to grow our earnings once again with further increasing cost savings… Even though demand is still volatile in some regions, we expect that stabilisation in our core markets is continuing.”

The group opened the world's first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage unit at its Brevik cement plant in Norway in June 2025. Production also started in May 2025 at its calcined clay plant joint-venture in Ghana. In July 2025 the group commenced operations at an industrial pilot plant for enforced carbonation in Górażdże, Poland.

India: HeidelbergCement India, part of Germany-based Heidelberg Materials, reported a standalone net profit of US$5.5m for the quarter ending 30 June 2025. This represented a 20.9% year-on-year rise compared to US$4.5m in the same period in 2024. The net revenue of the company rose by 12.3% to US$68.6m, while its operating profit surged by 13.4% to US$10.2m.

US: Environmental groups have welcomed the imminent start of work to rehabilitate Heidelberg Materials’ former Permanente cement plant and quarry in California, which ceased operations in 2023. The project, to start on 29 July 2025, will clean up a polluted section of the Permanente Creek, which flows from the Santa Cruz Mountains past the quarry site an into the San Francisco Bay.

The work was required as part of the settlement to a lawsuit filed in 2011 by the Sierra Club against Lehigh Southwest Cement company, which was subsequently acquired by Heidelberg Materials. Under the settlement, the company is required to restore 2.7km of the creek by 2030. The restoration will remove sediment that contains selenium, nickel and other heavy metals that have washed out of the quarry over the years. Workers also will plant native vegetation, build pools for trout, and stabilise slopes. The project's cost is estimated at US$25m, according to Heidelberg Materials’ David Perkins.

Environmental groups have said the work is overdue. "We're relieved that it's finally actually happening," said Katja Irvin, Guadalupe Group chair of the Sierra Club's Loma Prieta Chapter, based in Palo Alto. "There is mining waste in the creek, and concrete barriers in the creek. The slopes have been eroded. All of those problems eventually will be fixed.”