Displaying items by tag: India

India: The Deputy Labour Commissioner of the Union government has convened a tripartite meeting with representatives from Vasavadatta Cements and UltraTech Cement, the Shramajeevigala Vedike and the Labour Department to find a solution to the on-going wage disputes at Karnataka cement plants.

Mr. Hiremath, trade union leader and president of the Shramajeevigala Vedike, claimed that the cement companies were spreading falsehoods about the implementation of wage board salaries to contract labourers. They continued to pay a negligible US$2.89/day against the cement wage board's recommendation to pay more than US$8.03/day. The companies also provided false information to the Labour Commissioner that the cement wage board's recommendations were being implemented and hid the fact that contract labourers were not receiving any other benefits.

Mr. Hiremath said that if the Labour Department failed to ensure that the cement plants implemented the wage board's recommendations, the employees would not have any alternative but to launch an indefinite protest in New Delhi.

India: Dalmia Bharat has appointed Mahendra Singhi as Group CEO for Cement. Singhi previously worked for Shree Cement as the Executive Director.

Currently, Singhi is the co-chair of the Cement Sustainability Initiative in India. He is also on the Board of Governors of the National Council for Cement & Building Materials (NCB), besides being a member of the Central Expert Technical Committee on the Cement Sector on PAT (Perform, Achieve and Trade) scheme of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency. Other positions held include tenure as president of the Rajasthan Cement Manufacturers Association and executive committee member of TERI BCSD. He was also leader of the Indian Cement Sector Task Force for Energy Conservation, constituted by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, at the central ministry of power.

India: Ultratech Cement plans to spend US$810m to build two cement plants in the state of Uttarakhand. The Industrial Development Department has issued a letter of intent to the Indian cement producer asking it to set up its new plants at Tuni, Dehradun district and at Someshwar, Almora district. The plant at Tuni will have a cement production capacity of 3.5Mt/yr and the plant at Someshwar will have a capacity of 2Mt/yr.

India: Holcim Group, which is under the process of restructuring its holdings in India, has appointed Bernard Terver as additional director on the board of ACC and Ambuja Cements with effect from 4 December 2013.

Terver graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, in 1976 and has worked in the cement industry for more than 35 years. He has been in the service of Holcim since 1994, holding senior positions including that of CEO of Holcim Colombia and Holcim US.

The board also re-appointed Kuldip Kaura as the CEO and MD for one year with effect from 1 January 2014.

Bangladesh: Lafarge Surma Cement (LSC) earns up to US$60m/yr from sales of clinker to other cement companies in the country. The Bangladesh-based subsidiary of Lafarge imports limestone from a quarry in Meghalaya, India via a 17km belt conveyor to its cement plant at Chhatak, Bangladesh. According to the Financial Express, the setup is the only cross-border industrial venture between India and Bangladesh.

India: UltraTech Cement has appointed Arun Adhikari as an Additional Independent Director on the Board with effect from 3 December 2013.

India: A fire broke out at the government run Jammu & Kashmir Cement plant in the Pulwama district of south Kashmir on 3 December 2013. No one was hurt and damage was caused to "a few machines like motors, diesel oil tank, hot air generator and coal mill," said a police spokesman. Fire and emergency services responded swiftly and put out the fire in an hour. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

India: Following the successful vote to re-structure Holcim's India operations, Ambuja Cements and ACC, the integration of common functions across the two companies has begun.

Holcim wants to eradicate the duplication of roles across the two companies that will aid in savings of US$144m through synergies in supply chain and fixed cost optimisation. The integration will see big changes for some of the two companys' 10,000 employees. Some will be relocated to the group's upcoming facilities as the cement makers have no plans to cut spending.

"The restructuring is about deriving further value from the Indian platform," said Anantharam Gopalkrishnan, vice president for the treasury and tax at Ambuja Cements.

Holcim intends to keep the two brands, Ambuja Cement and ACC, independent. It does not plan to launch the Holcim brand in India or market the two brands with the Holcim tag. When the integration process is completed, which is currently scheduled for 2015, Holcim intends to evaluate the full merger of the operating companies into one unified entity.

Germany/India: The exclusive Cooperation Agreement will enable MVW Lechtenberg & Partner (Germany) and Tridiagonal Solutions (India) to combine activities in the worldwide cement and lime industry to utilise Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to develop, design and troubleshoot combustion processes.

CFD is the computer-aided solution technique to describe and simulate flow-related physical phenomena such as fluid flow, heat transfer and combustion. CFD has proven itself as a powerful technique to solve flow-related problems across a range of industries. Various cement, lime and power plant applications that can be analysed using CFD include kilns and boilers, flue gas cleaning systems, bag filters, bypass systems, NO_x reduction systems, heat recovery steam generators and related equipment.

"With recent advances in the understanding of combustion, multi-phase, turbulent reacting flows and computational resources, it is now possible to develop and use computational models to simulate the performance of cement and lime plant equipment with our huge database on alternative fuels and raw materials and their influence on processes. With the outstanding experience of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling professionals from Tridiagonal Solutions we can now provide a reliable and cost effective process modeling solution to the industry," said Dirk Lechtenberg, managing director and founder of MVW Lechtenberg & Partner.

Besides CFD Modeling, the cooperation also offers a powerful framework for state-of-the-art technology services that include process engineering and consulting (including manufacturing of pilot plants), experimental fluid flow modeling, discrete element modeling (DEM), granular dynamics consulting (EDEM - CFD coupled simulations) and simulation software development.

"Tridiagonal has been delivering process performance enhancement and product development solutions to leading companies from chemicals and process, oil and gas, power generation, pharmaceuticals, and the automotive industry. We are excited to partner with MVW and bring our expertise to the cement and lime industry. The synergy between Tridiagonal and MVW's expertise will lead to new insights and innovative solutions in the cement and lime industry worldwide" said Sandeepak Natu, Head-India Europe Business Unit of Tridiagonal Solutions.

India: Shree Cement Ltd announced on 25 November 2013 that Shri Mahendra Singhi, Executive Director of the Company, had resigned with effect from 6 December 2013. No further details were made provided.