Displaying items by tag: HeidelbergCement
Tanzania: Tanzania Portland Cement recorded an increase in turnover of 13% year-on-year to US$170m in 2020 from US$150m in 2019. The Daily News newspaper has reported that the company’s net profit for the year was US$31.9m, up by 25% year-on-year from US$25.4m in 2019. Its sales volumes of cement grew by 6% in 2020. Chair Hakan Gurdal attributed the results to increased cement volumes, level prices and controlled cost.
Gurdal said, “We achieved new records in production, dispatching and cement sales, following a volumes strategy to offset the general price downward trend of the past 10 years.” He added that the company remains ‘deeply involved’ in large infrastructure projects and that “The trend remains strong.” In 2020, national cement demand rose to 5.9Mt
By the end of 2021, Tanzania is expected to have a cement production capacity of 11Mt/yr.
Fire reported at Hanson UK’s Padeswood cement plant
17 June 2021UK: A fire at Hanson UK’s Padeswood cement plant was reported on 15 June 2021. Firefighters from the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene and the blaze was extinguished, according to Deeside News. David Quick, plant manager, said that an investigation into the cause of the fire will follow in due course.
Huaxin Cement targets East Africa
16 June 2021The latest piece of China-based Huaxin Cement’s global ambitions slotted into place this week with the news that it is preparing to buy plants in Zambia and Malawi. Its board of directors has approved plans to spend US$150m towards acquiring a 75% stake in Lafarge Zambia and US$10m on a 100% stake in Lafarge Cement Malawi. The move will gain it two integrated plants with a combined production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr in Zambia, and a 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant in Malawi.
This latest proposed acquisition represents the next step for Huaxin Cement in Africa following its purchase of African Tanzanian Maweni Limestone from ARM Cement in mid-2020. The company has also been busy along the more traditional Belt and Road Initiative land routes in Asia. It started up the kiln at its new 2Mt/yr Jizzakh cement plant in mid-2020. Elsewhere in Central Asia it runs two plants in Tajikistan and one plant in Kyrgyzstan via various indirectly-owned subsidiaries. While in South Asia it runs a plant in Nepal and in South-East Asia it runs one in Cambodia. If the plans in Zambia and Malawi pay off then it will give the Chinese producer a growing presence in East Africa, with plants in three countries.
The China Cement Association ranked Huaxin Cement as the country’s fifth largest clinker producer in 2021 with an integrated capacity base of just under 63Mt/yr. Domestically, the company operates 57 cement plants and most of these are based in the Yangtze River Economic Belt region. In 2020 it reported cement and clinker sales of 76Mt, a small decrease from 2019. Its operating income fell by 6.6% year-on-year to US$4.58bn and profit dropped by 12% to US$1.2bn. This performance was blamed on the emergence of Covid-19 at the start of 2020 and then floods later in the year.
Compared to the other larger Chinese cement producers, Huaxin Cement roughly appears to be holding rank with its overseas expansions. The leaders, CNBM and Anhui Conch, hold subsidiaries with plants in South-East and Central Asia and CNBM’s engineering wing, Sinoma, has a far bigger reach, building plants all over the place. Information has been scarce since mid-2020 on the long heralded 7Mt/yr plant in Tanzania due to be built by Sinoma and local subsidiary Hengya Cement. At that time local residents in Mtimbwani, Mkinga District were reportedly being compensated for their land. Other than this, one of the other big players internationally is Taiwan Cement. In 2018 it invested around US$1.1bn for a 40% stake in Turkey-based Oyak Cement. As well as a presence in Turkey this also gave it a share of plants in Portugal in 2019 when Oyak completed its acquisition of Cimpor.
Elsewhere this week, carrying some of the themes above with expansion in Central Asia, two new integrated cement plant projects were announced in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan respectively. Meanwhile, Italcementi said it will invest Euro5.0m to restart clinker production at its Trentino cement plant in Sarche di Madruzzo, Italy. The unit has been operating as a grinding plant since 2015. This might be viewed as an unexpected decision considering the high local CO2 price but it shows some level of confidence in the local market by Italcementi and its parent company, HeidelbergCement. The next step will be when or if a European producer decides to build a brand new integrated plant in Italy or elsewhere.
Germany: Data from HeidelbergCement’s Sustainability Report 2020 reveals that it reduced its specific net CO2 emissions by 2% year-on-year to 576kg/t of cementious material in 2020 from 589 kg/t in 2019. This represents a 23% reduction since 1990. The company has a target of 30% by 2025. It has a number of carbon capture and utilisation/storage (CCU/S) projects in various stages of development to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Other data shows that its alternative fuels substitution rate rose to 25.7% from 24% and its clinker ratio fell slightly to 74.3%.
During the reporting year, the group joined the climate lobbying group Foundation 2° and achieving a CDP climate protection rating of A. For water security it secured the second-highest rating of A-. The group’s specific water consumption for cement rose by 5% in 2020 to 271.9l/t of cement from 260l/t in 2019. However the company says it is continuing to improve water consumption reporting at its sites until 2025.
Italy: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Italcementi has announced a planned investment of Euro5.0m to restart clinker production at its Trentino cement plant in Sarche di Madruzzo. The plant will have an integrated production capacity of 0.25Mt/yr when it resumes full operation from January 2022. The company aims to establish a ‘reference plant for the Northeast’ at the facility. It will begin hiring 30 new staff in late 2021. The unit has been operating as a grinding plant since 2015.
Technical director Agostino Rizzo said, “The cement plant is equipped with the technologies necessary to guarantee high level environmental performance. To this will be added a landscape integration. The relationship with the region and local communities is of great importance for us.”
US: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Cement and Keystone Cement have stepped away from an agreement to merge their businesses. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to challenge the proposed merger in late May 2021.
FTC Bureau of Competition acting director Maribeth Petrizzi said, “This is great news for cement customers in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey. The FTC voted 4-0 to challenge this transaction because it would have reduced the number of significant competitors in the market for grey Portland Cement in this region from four to three. I’m grateful to the bureau’s staff for their tireless efforts throughout this investigation, but also to our partners in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, who worked closely with us to ensure that cement customers in this region will continue to benefit from competition between Lehigh and Keystone.”
Germany: HeidelbergCement has appointed René Aldach as its group chief financial officer (CFO) and it has created two new positions on its managing board. Nicola Kimm will become the new board member for sustainability and Dennis Lentz will become the new board member for digitalisation. All changes will become effective from the start of September 2021.
Aldach, aged 42 years, will succeed Lorenz Näger in the post of CFO following Näger’s retirement at the end of August 2021. Näger has been HeidelbergCement’s CFO since 2004. Aldach currently works as Director Group Reporting, Controlling & Consolidation for HeidelbergCement. He joined the company in 2004 and has worked in Germany, Africa and Australia, including holding the position of CFO for Hanson Australia.
Kimm, aged 51 years, will become the group’s Chief Sustainability Officer responsible for environment social governance, global research & development and new technologies. She currently works as an executive committee member and chief sustainability officer for Signify, the lighting business that was formerly part of Philips. As a trained ecologist and chemical engineer, and with a PhD in business engineering, she holds almost 25 years of international professional experience. Kimm has also held sustainability roles with BASF, Corbion/CSM and Philips and worked in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Lentz, aged 39 years, will become the group’s Chief Digital Officer. Since 2010, he has held management positions as Head of Group Energy Purchasing, Director Logistics and Group CIO at HeidelbergCement. Before joining the company, he worked as a management consultant in the building materials and mining industry with a strong focus on process optimisation.
Sweden: Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Cementa plans to upgrade its Slite unit in Gotland to become the world’s first carbon-neutral cement plant. This will be achieved through modification of the plant’s fuel system to ‘significantly raise’ biobased fuel substitution, as well as 100% carbon capture and storage (CCS) via a 1.8Mt/yr CCS installation. Full-scale capturing of the plant’s CO2 emissions is scheduled by 2030.
Chair Dominik von Achten said, “HeidelbergCement will be the leader in the global cement industry on its transformation path towards climate neutrality. The key for decarbonising our industry is to find, apply and scale technical solutions for carbon capture and utilisation or storage (CCU/S). After having gained valuable experience with CCU/S technologies in Norway and other countries, we are now excited to make the next step with a completely carbon-neutral cement plant in Sweden.”
Suez Cement inoculates staff against Covid-19
28 May 2021Egypt: Suez Cement, part of Germany-based HeidelbergCement, has begun its first round of staff inoculations against Covid-19 at its plants and offices. Government medical staff supervised the sessions, which the company said were well attended.
Human resources director Sherry Bishara said, "I am pleased to take this opportunity to thank the Ministry of Health and Suez governorate Preventive Medicine Directorate for their collaboration in providing the vaccine and medical staff needed for administering the vaccine for staff and also to thank the group's medical service for facilitating the campaign.”
UK: Hanson, part of Germany-based HeidelbergCement, has supplied basalt from its Builth Wells, Powys quarry to the world’s first CO2 sequestration field trial in the Brecon Beacons. The trial uses local live soil enriched with basalt for enhanced CO2 sequestration in a reforested 11ha woodland. Enhanced rock weathering takes crushed basalt, a by-product of quarrying, and applies it to the soil to capture CO2 and provide essential nutrients to fertilise trees and the fungi in the soil that support tree growth. The building materials producer says it is a method that has been proven to be successful in sugar beet and pea crops.
Sustainability director Marian Garfield said, “Hanson is focussed on climate protection and carbon reduction, and enhancing biodiversity net gain are two of our key 2030 commitments.” She added, “We are excited to be involved with this project, which aims to determine whether basalt can accelerate the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere in the creation of new woodland and could therefore potentially play a vital role in helping tackle the climate crisis.”