Displaying items by tag: India

India: Shree Digvijay Cement has executed a share purchase agreement to acquire a 27% stake in a hybrid wind and solar power project from Trinethra Renewable Energy, a power producer, and Continuum Green Energy. It will spend US$1m on the deal, implying a value of US$0.13m/MW. The total installed capacity of the project is 8.1MW.

The hybrid power contract will generate about 37% of total power needed by the plant. When combined with the plant’s waste heat recovery (WHR) system, it will constitute over 65% of the total power needs of the company, representing considerable savings in the cost of power and an improved environment footprint.

India: Aumund Engineering India has been selected by ACC to refurbish a 175.3m high bucket elevator, the tallest in the world. The elevator is installed at ACC’s Wadi Cement plant in Karnataka where it is used for raw meal pre-heater transport at a rate of 600t/hr.

Originally, the machine was fitted with a steel cord belt of width 1320mm and tension rating of 3150N/mm. Aumund has decided to offer an alternative based on its own design concept resulting in a belt width of 1300mm but with higher tension rating of 4000N/mm with a bucket size of 1250mm at bucket spacing of 450mm. The Aumund belt concept will use continuous close pitch longitudinal ropes without rope free bucket mounting spaces. However, it will use additional wire ropes running laterally across the width of the belt adding lateral stiffness without significantly changing the belt longitudinal flexibility. This cross-stabilised construction is intended to improve stability to the belt with improved bucket fixing.

To make the necessary belt punching, Aumund has developed a special punching machine design which gives clean fixing holes that are accurately aligned relative to the belt edge and at precisely the correct pitch. The belt is held in a cassette and advanced automatically under the punching frame using a precision encoder to measure the pitch. The belts are prepared at the Aumund production in Rheinberg, Germany and shipped to site at the exact required dimensions including a prepared joint and the required clamping connection.

In addition to the new belt the elevator will also be fitted with new drive pulley including friction linings and rubber bucket mounting strips. The casings, inlet and outlet plus the complete drive unit remain unchanged.
No commissioning date for the project has been announced.

India: UltraTech Cement says it has been declared as the preferred bidder for a limestone block in an electronic auction conducted by the Karnataka government. The block is situated in Tehsil Chittapur of Kalburgi district in Karnataka next to the company’s integrated Rajashree plant. It has a total cement grade geological resource of 530Mt of limestone over an area of 7.86km².

India: A shortage of limestone in the Jammu and Kashmir union territory since December 2021 has resulted in cement plant workers being laid off in Udhampur district. The local sector has lobbied the regional government to supply limestone from state-controlled quarries to fix the situation, according to Asian News International. One cement plant employee interviewed by the news agency said that his plant had laid off around 80 workers from a total of 200 due to the shortage.

India: ACC’s Chaibasa cement plant in Jharkhand has received its first instalment of fly ash for use in cement production from Vedanta Aluminium subsidiary Vedanta Jharsuguda. Global Cement News previously reported that Vedanta Aluminium had been seeking a cement industry fly ash and bauxite residue buyer for a long-term collaborative partnership in July 2021.

In the 2022 financial year, Vedanta Aluminium supplied 190,000t of fly ash to Indian cement producers.

UAE: Switzerland-based ABB has carried out an upgrade of the control system for UltraTech Cement subsidiary Star Super Cement at the company's Dubai grinding plant. The supplier says that it installed its ABB Ability 800xA distributed control system (DCS) across three grinding units at the facility. The DCS will communicate between the plant and the company's Ras Al Khaimah clinker plant. ABB previously supplied electric and automation engineering services for the Ras Al Khaimah plant in 2012.

ABB Process Industries global cement lead Max Tschurtschenthaler said that Star Cement's operations will benefit from improved operator visibility, easier maintenance and reduced downtime due to the new systems.

Russia: The government is ‘working to establish import flows’ of building materials from Uzbekistan. Russian media sources have reported that the construction industry is also hoping to expand import partnerships with China, India, Iran and Turkey. Russian cement production reportedly continues to adequately serve the national demand for cement.

India: Jaiprakash Associates has defaulted on its scheduled repayments of loans worth US$381m. Dion News Service has reported that the debt consists of US$203m-worth of overdue payments and a further US$178m in principal. The group’s total indebtedness is reportedly US$3.63bn. Its lenders include
HDFC Bank, Bank of India, Union Bank of India and over 30 other institutions.

India: ACC has launched its new Concrete Direct app for booking and live tracking concrete deliveries. The producer says that the app reduces operational follow-up calls.

Managing director and CEO Sridhar Balakrishnan said “At ACC, we recognise the need to improve and lead through digitalisation. We are happy to launch Concrete Direct, a premium digital tool that saves time and money for our customers. With such innovations, we want to enhance customer experience and build a strong ecosystem of partners to support them.”

India: RCCPL, a subsidiary of Birla Corporation, has commenced cement despatches from its 2.7M/yr Mukutban cement plant in Maharashtra. The plant has a further grinding capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and a 40MW captive power plant. Switzerland-based ABB previously delivered electrification and automation systems to the site of the new plant in June 2020.