Displaying items by tag: MPA

UK: The MPA has released its Sustainable Development Report 2018 covering the performance of the local cement industry to 2017. Key indicators include a alternative fuels co-processing rate of 43.8% in 2017 compared to 39.2% in 2016. This is the second highest rate since 2010, just below 44% in 2013. It reported CO₂ emissions from calcination (process emissions) of 465kgCO₂/tPCe, a slight increase from 2016. Emissions of NO_x, SO₂ and particulate matter all fell or remained stable. Cement production from MPA members remained stable at 9.4Mt in 2017.

UK: QPA Northern Ireland (QPANI) will change its name to MPA Northern Ireland (MPANI) in 2019. QPANI is the trade association for the mineral products sector in Northern Ireland with 87 members employing just over 5000 people. It has been an affiliate of the Mineral Products Association (MPA) since 2009.

“Our move from QPANI to MPANI was endorsed by our members as they believe the time is right to take this important step. The reference to minerals in our new title recognises the fact that our membership base is wide and varied across our Industry in Northern Ireland representing the extraction and processing of hard rock, sand, salt, lime and chalk into products that support and sustain our quality of life,” said Gordon Best, director of QPANI. He added that the association had
an ‘excellent’ working relationship with the MPA, other MPA regions in the UK and with the Irish Mining and Quarries Society (IMQS) in the Republic of Ireland.

UK: Simon Vivian, Chief Executive of Breedon Aggregates Limited, has been appointed as Chairman of the UK's Mineral Products Association (MPA) for the next two years. He succeeded Bill Brett, effective 1 September 2015. Vivian is the third chairman of the MPA to date to serve from an independent company.

"We are delighted that Simon has agreed to pick up the baton from Bill. His wide industry knowledge and experience will be invaluable to the association as we look to set the agenda for the industry for the next 10 years and respond to the challenges ahead," said MPA Chief Executive Nigel Jackson

The MPA looks out for the interests of the UK's cement producers.

The timing of the UK Mineral Products Association's (MPA) latest call to arms makes one wonder how well the economic recovery is going in parts of Europe. The MPA has launched a document entitled 'Cementing the Future – Sustaining an Essential British Industry' to promote the UK cement industry. It is the MPA's job to beat the drum for the industries it represents so in this sense it should always be trying to raise the minerals sector's profile.

Yet as the UK economy starts to lumber out of the recession, a publication like this suggests that the challenges ahead of the industry are still large. MPA figures released in July 2013 showed that year-on-year growth in cement volumes hit a low of -10% in the second quarter of 2012 before rising to better (negative) rates to the first quarter of 2013. No data was available for the second quarter of 2013.

One of the MPA's recommendations is that the UK government does more to protect the main internationally-owned players from international trading markets. At least foreign-owned companies provide local jobs. The main thrust is to protect the industry from carbon taxation, ensuring better international competiveness. On the back of Cembureau's latest industry figures, chief executive Koen Coppenholle recommends much the same thing for Europe as a whole in his column in the September 2013 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

One thing the MPA doesn't need is more bad news when the UK Competition Commission publishes its report on an investigation on the aggregates, cement and ready-mix concrete market in December 2013. On that score the investigation hasn't been too troubling so far with its provisional findings concluding that despite poor competition between firms on price there was no explicit collusion.

In terms of competition though things could be worse. For example, take Colombia. In August 2013 the Colombian competition agency, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC), announced its investigation in the country's main players for 'sustained and unjustified' increases in the price of cement since 2010. For the first six months of 2013 cement prices rose by 8% compared to an inflation rate of 1.73%.

Whatever is happening in Colombia, its largest cement producer, Cementos Argos, saw its profits rise by 5.9% to US$218m in 2012. At present the MPA can only dream of times like that again and hope that the UK government takes note of its advocacy.

UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) today, which promotes the interests of the cement industry in the UK, has today launched a landmark document for the UK cement industry, 'Cementing the Future – Sustaining an Essential British Industry'. The new publication sets out to explain the importance of cement and concrete to the UK economy and society and draws attention to the vulnerability of the industry to overseas competition unless the government acts to create a level playing field in terms of the cost of regulation and unilateral 'green taxes' that overseas competitors do not face.

"Cement is a key constituent in concrete, the most widely used man made substance on the planet , and underpins our economy and everyday life," said Dr Pal Chana, Executive Director of the MPA. "Our shops, factories, offices, homes, schools, hospitals and much more all depend on this critical material yet the industry is struggling to compete in the face of ever increasing costs, some of which are centrally imposed by government. Our strategic significance to the economy cannot be overstated."

"The government's own economic growth plans are predicated on a substantial increase in the construction of infrastructure and housing and cement and concrete are going to be needed for both," continued Chana. "We cannot allow the supply of this essential material to be left to the vagaries of the international trading markets, especially not when we have a deep rooted industry here in the UK with factories in mainly rural locations providing much needed jobs."

'Cementing the Future' calls on the government to: recognise the industry's strategic significance and potential to generate economic growth; acknowledge the industry's role in delivering a low-carbon future for the UK; deliver an economic climate of investment security and reduce regulatory uncertainty in the industry; reduce the cumulative cost burden on the industry and; lift unilateral green taxes. In return, the industry will deliver: a secure supply of quality-assured cement made in the UK; commitment to the UK government's infrastructure and built environment programme; continued investment in the future of a healthy domestic cement industry; sustained employment at our network of UK cement plants and the supporting supply chain and; a planned reduction of 81% in greenhouse gases as detailed in our Carbon Roadmap to 2050.

"The UK cement industry has provided an essential material for the built environment for over 100 years. Working with government, we can continue to make a vital contribution to development and cement the future of an essential British industry", concluded Chana.

The Mineral Products Association (MPA), which looks after the interests of the cement industry (and other allied industries) in the UK, has said that it welcomes a temporary tax-freeze relating to climate change announced in the UK Budget of 20 March 2013. The MPA singled out the decision to freeze the indexation of the Aggregates Levy until April 2014 and the decision to introduce the Climate Change Levy mineralogical and metallurgical exemption for energy-intensive industries such as cement and lime.

Both of these moves by UK Chancellor George Osborne have been welcomed because they bring some relief to the UK cement industry and wider construction activities. MPA members make money from such activites and any potential cost that can be eliminated or delayed, even for a short time, is welcome amid the current slump that is the UK economy. This is especially true as the UK weathers the one of the longest and most severe winters for 50 years. So far, so much sense.

However, how does this reaction to the Climate Change Levy exemption tie in with the MPA's February 2013 announcement that it thinks that the UK cement industry's total CO₂ emissions should be reduced by 81% by 2050? What should UK cement producers make of this?

The MPA's cement industry CO₂ reduction targets are certainly bold. On the face of it, they look achievable given the progress that has been made to date by the UK cement industry, although much is left to the imagination as to which areas could and should contribute most to the reduction target. The 81% reduction target includes the successful future commercial development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. It also relies on an increased proportion of renewable sources for the electricity that the cement industry will receive in 2050, something else that is totally out of the industry's control.

However, much hard work has already been done by cement companies in the UK. As in other EU countries and developed nations, total dust and toxic emissions have fallen dramatically in the UK cement industry since 1990. The country's alternative fuel substitution rate has now hit ~40%. Yet, as the MPA highlights in its document detailing the targets for 2050, much of the low-hanging fruit has already been taken. Further reduction in overall CO₂ emissions will be significantly affected by both regulations and cement company progress. 

Cement companies can increase their consumption of 'wastes' and fit waste-heat recovery systems. Through such measures they can achieve further reductions in emissions. Some kilns have hit alternative fuel substitution rates of 100% for limited periods and examples from the near continent show that 80% alternative fuels can be the norm. However, unlike these 'bottom-up' approaches, which can be introduced at a plant in a period of months, regulations take years to evolve and come into force, often involving slow and lengthly debate by politicians, associations and consumers.

To discourage the government from seeking to impose stricter environmental regulations for the cement industry by welcoming the exemption, is the MPA undercutting its own calls to reduce CO2 emissions in the UK cement industry? From a cement producer's perspective, it looks like the MPA could hold two contradictory opinions on the same subject: that you can welcome reductions in climate regulation while also calling for stricter emissions regulations. This phenomenon was famously termed 'double think' by George Orwell in his classic novel '1984,' but the MPA's situation is far more subtle. Often the regulators and those being regulated can agree on the same target but not on how that target should be reached. The next 37 years will show whether or not this target is even possible.

UK: The Minerals Products Association (MPA) has welcomed measures in the UK government's 2013 budget that will help boost the outlook for the cement industry and the wider mineral products and construction sectors. The MPA singled out the decision to freeze the indexation of the Aggregates Levy until April 2014 and the decision to introduce the Climate Change Levy mineralogical and metallurgical exemption for energy intensive industries such as cement and lime.

"The government is clearly listening and understands that investing in infrastructure and construction is key to securing growth. The issue remains of ensuring that cash flows into action on the ground to help improve confidence and induce private sector investment, which is needed to accelerate growth in demand," said Nigel Jackson, chief executive of the MPA.

UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA), which represents UK cement producers, has became the first national cement industry body to publish its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plans to 2050.

Outlining an ambitious target of reducing GHG emissions by 81% by 2050 relative to1990, the Kyoto Protocol baseline year, the UK cement industry has set out for the first time the actions that it, and others, need to take to exceed the UK Government's own aim of 80% GHG reduction. Some of these carbon-reducing measures are already within the capability of the UK cement companies, but others like the decarbonisation of the electricity sector and carbon capture and storage are not in the industry's control and others, including the government, will have to be relied upon to play their roles.

The MPA said that the targets were 'ambitious but achievable' and that the industry would look to use every means possible, within strict environmental controls and technical standards requirements, to meet its goals.

According to government advisors cement producers pay more in the UK than other nations for their electricity and it's getting worse.

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report published on Friday 13 July 2012 has shown that firms in the UK will be forced to pay an extra Euro36 in green taxes on top of the market price they pay for every megawatt hour of electricity by 2020 due to climate policies. This compares with Euro22 in Germany, Euro20 in Denmark, Euro19.3 in France and Euro12.7 in China.

As the Mineral Products Association (MPA) put it, "...cement is an internationally traded commodity and, if it costs more to make it here than to import it, then we are threatening a strategic indigenous manufacturing industry for no environmental gain." Or to put it more bluntly, if the cost of importing cement from France to the UK is less than the energy saving then say 'goodbye' to the UK cement industry. The issue raises one of the core problem of any carbon tax in a global economy. If your neighbours don't have the same tax as you then they can undercut you. Similar arguments rage in Australia and the US.

The UK will be the first country with legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020, with a pledge to introduce a carbon floor price of Euro19.98/t in 2013. As Edwin Trout explained in his recent article in Global Cement Magazine on the British Cement Industry in 2011 and 2012 the government took steps to address this in November 2011 with a Euro318m package for energy-intensive industries. Unfortunately as the MPA has now pointed out, the cement industry is ineligible for the first Euro140m of this package because the EU has ruled against such support for the sector in relation to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

Unsurprisingly alternative fuels trials are thriving in the UK, such as that at Lafarge UK's Aberthaw plant, which celebrates 100 years of operation this weekend.

UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has demanded that the UK government protect the domestic cement industry from rising electricity costs. The comments came in the MPA's response to a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report has stated that electricity bills for UK manufacturers were higher than other key nations because of environmental regulation.

Commenting on the BIS report the MPA said that the new data confirmed what it had been telling the government since 2011. The MPS added the report clearly shows that the UK cement industry must receive some help if it is to survive and supply the UK's low carbon economy.

"The Government now has the evidence to corroborate the industry evidence," said Nigel Jackson, chief executive of the MPA. "It is time for them to respond and take the action we have been urging them to take for so long and to come forward with their long awaited Energy Intensive Industries Strategy."

The BIS report stated that electricity bills for UK manufacturers were higher than other key nations because of climate change levels. It added that by 2020, green taxes will be double those in other EU nations and many times higher than those in the US. According to the report firms in the UK will be forced to pay an extra Euro36 in green taxes on top of the market price they pay for every MWH of electricity by 2020 due to climate policies. This compares with Euro20 in Denmark, renowned for its renewable energy drive, Euro19.3 in France, Euro22 in Germany, Euro12.7 in China and a fall in the US and Russia.

In its response to the BIS report, the MPA stated that the UK cement industry had reduced its CO2 emissions by 57% since 1990 confirmed its commitment to tackling climate change. It approved of the government's 2011 autumn statement to compensate some energy intensive industries against electricity costs by Euro318m. Yet it also pointed out that the UK cement industry will not qualify for a share of the first Euro140m of this because the EU has ruled against such support for the sector, in relation to indirect costs associated with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.