Displaying items by tag: Namibia

Namibia: The Whale Rock Cement plant is set to start producing cement at its new grinding plant near Otjiwarongo in April 2018. Using the Cheetah Cement brand name the company had originally intended to start production in January 2018, according to the Namibia Press Agency. Clinker for the plant has been imported from Egypt. Previously, the imported cement was reported by local media as coming from China.

Originally the company intended to buy clinker from a local producer but the negotiations failed leading the cement producer to buy imports instead. Around 24,000t of clinker from a total of 40,000t have been transported from Walvis Bay to Otjiwarongo by 732 trucks. Once fully operational in August 2018 the plant is expected to create around 600 jobs. The company is a joint venture between China’s Asia-Africa Business Management and Whale Rock Cement.

Namibia: Cheetah Cement has imported 40,000t of clinker from China via the Port of Walvis Bay. The clinker will be transported by truck to the cement producer’s plant in Otjiwarongo, according to the Namibian Sun newspaper. The company is a joint venture between China’s Asia-Africa Business Management and Whale Rock Cement. Its plant was reported ‘complete’ in late 2017 but construction work continued into January 2018.

Namibia: Famers have voiced their concerns that a new cement plant being built by Cheetah Cement will affect the water supply for their livestock. The fears have arisen following a notice by the company that it intends to start blasting at the construction site, according to the Namibian newspaper. The farmers have refused to take notice of eviction orders at the site by the Otjiwarongo municipality over risks that the water borehole will become contaminated. The cement plant is a joint venture between China’s Asia-Africa Business Management and Whale Rock Cement.

Just before the Christmas break one of the Global Cement editorial staff noticed how many solar projects have been popping up in the industry news of late. Looking at stories on the Global Cement website tagged with ‘solar’ five occurred in a six month period of 2017 out of a total of 13 since 2014. It’s not a rigorous study by any means but projects in the US, South Korea, India, Namibia and Jordan all suggest a trend.

All these new projects appear to be providing a supplementary energy source from photovoltaic (PV) solar plants that will be used to supply a portion of a cement plant’s electrical power requirements at a subsidised cost. Typically, these initiatives are preparing to supply 20 - 30% of a plant’s electricity over a couple of decades. These schemes are often supported by government subsidies to encourage decarbonised energy sources and a general trend in societies for so-called ‘greener’ energy sources in the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change.

Global Cement is familiar with this model of solar power in the cement industry from its use at the HeidelbergCement Hanson plant at Ketton in the UK. The project was realised by Armstrong Energy through local supplier Lark Energy and it provides around 13% of the cement plant’s electrical energy needs. Originally the array started off by supplying 10MW but this was later increased to 13MW in 2015. A key feature is that as part of the agreement with Armstrong Energy, Hanson receives 35% of the solar power generated for free and buys the remaining 65% at a fixed rate. Even at this rate the plant expects to save around Euro11m in energy costs over the lifetime of the solar array. In addition it will save 3500t/yr of CO2.

Most of the new solar projects announced in 2017 are of a similar scale and ambition to what Hanson Cement has done at Ketton. However, JSW Group’s plans are a magnitude larger. The Indian cement producer wants to build a 200MW solar plant next to its cement grinding plant at Salboni in West Bengal for US$124m. However, it has hedged its bets somewhat by saying that it might build a 36MW thermal power plant instead if its proposal fails.

LafargeHolcim and Italcementi have also experimented with concentrated solar power (CSP) plants for the cement industry. In 2007 LafargeHolcim and the Solar Technology Laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich started researching using high-temperature solar heat to upgrade low-grade carbonaceous feedstock to produce synthetic gas. The intention was to use the synthetic gas as a substitute for coal and petcoke in kilns.

Italcementi’s project at the Aït Baha plant in Morocco uses a CSP process that can be used with the plant’s waste heat recovery unit. Its moveable trough-style solar collectors follow the sun throughout the day to warm up a heat-transfer fluid during the day and store the heat in gravel beds overnight. In this way the CSP process allows for continuous operation over 24 hours. Before Italcementi’s acquisition by HeidelbergCement in 2016 the company had long-term ambitions to roll-out its CSP process across plants in the Middle East and North African region.

New battery technology of the kind backing the growing electric car industry may be further pushing the cement industry’s preference to PV over CSP power. The other renewable energy source slowly being built to support cement plants has been wind. Like PV it too suffers from cyclical disruptions to its power. Technological entrepreneur Elon Musk (of Tesla car fame) notably supplied the world's largest lithium-ion battery to Southern Australia to support one of its wind farms in late 2017. Around the same time local cement producer Adelaide Bighton announced in a separate deal that it had struck a deal to use wind power to part-power some of its facilities in the same region. At present it doesn’t look like solar power will be completely powering cement plants in the near future but perhaps a renewable fuels rate along similar lines to an alternative fuels rate might be a growing trend to watch.

The Global Cement CemPower conference on electrical power, including waste heat recovery, captive power, grinding optimisation and electrical energy efficiency, will return in January 2019.

Namibia/China: Sinoma Energy Conservation has signed a contract with China’s Asia-Africa Business Management (AABM) to build a 4.5MW waste heat power plant. The power unit will support a 2500t/day cement production plant that AABM and local company Whale Rock Cement plan to build as a joint venture. The cement plant project was first announced in 2015.

Namibia: Ohorongo Cement has opened a US$0.3m terminal at Ondangwa in the north of the country. Clemens H Kashuupulwa, the governor of Oshana Region, officiated at the event. The depot is intended to target the four northern regions in Namibia as well as export cement to southern Angola. The site follows a Private Public Partnership agreement with TransNamib to lease land at Ondangwa railway station, and is part of the Northern Railway Extension project that extends from Tsumeb to Oshikango. It will distribute various cement types, including CEM II 42.5 N, CEM I 42.5 R, CEM II 32.5 N B-LL for the local market. It will also ship CEM II 42.5 N with Portuguese labelling for Angola.

Namibia: Ohorongo Cement has held a ground breaking ceremony for a 5MW solar plant at its Sargberg cement plant in North Otavi. The site is being developed and built by Germany’s SunEQ and its local partner Hungileni. The US$7.8m project is scheduled to start operation by the end of 2017.

“Electricity is of paramount importance to our operations and constitutes 25% of our production requirements. We are aware of the country’s precarious energy situation and hence took the decision to tap into the renewable energy resource which our country is endowed with,” said Hans-Wilhelm Schutte, Ohorongo Cement’s managing director.

Ohorongo Cement has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with SunEQ. Construction of the plant will start once SunEQ has obtained a generation license from the Electricity Control Board.

Namibia: Ohorongo Cement has inaugurated upgrades to its cement plant in Otavi including a composite cement unit and a third packaging line. The US$10.6m expansion is expected to increase the plant’s production capacity to 1Mt/yr. Deputy Minister of Mines and Energy Kornelia Shilunga presided at the event.

The composite cement unit will enable the plant to produce various types of cement. The new packaging line will increase the plant’s packaging rate to 6800bags/hr from 4400bags/hr. Ohorongo Cement has also installed a 2t big bag filling station for special projects, aimed at optimising logistics.

The Namibian Standards Institute also certified Ohorongo Cement’s products at the inauguration for fulfilling the requirements of the Namibian Standard NAMS/EN 197-1:2014. The scope of certification covers five types of cement manufactured by Ohorongo Cement: CEM II A-LL 42.5N, CEM II B-LL 32.5N, CEM II B-V 42.5N, CEM I 42.5R, and CEM I 52.5N. The new certification should allow Ohorongo Cement to enter markets in Zambia and Botswana without additional certification and inspections.

Namibia: Ohorongo Cement Company has dismissed the construction of a US$343m plant by competitor Whale Rock Cement as a 'non-entity.'

Ohorongo Cement is, however, worried about the power generation challenges and drought. Marketing and Communications Manager at Ohorongo Cement, Carina Sowden, told local newspaper The Villager that new market players are the least of their fears. "Ohorongo Cement can already provide more than double the cement demand of the Namibian market. The question is raised as to why new investments are not rather focussed on the generation of electricity and energy, and the severe drought the country is currently facing," said Sowden.

"Competition is always a good thing, as long as the playing fields are level. The company has always had competition from both within the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) region as well as Angola and Zambia, where there is ample capacity," said Sowden.

In July 2015 Ohorongo Cement announced that it had invested another US$10.3m into a new composite cement plant, including new silo capacity and a packaging line. "Ohorongo Cement can now produce double the entire demand of Namibia and still absorb additional export volumes. All different types of packaging caters for both the local and export market, which includes 50kg bags, different sizes of big bags and bulk cement. Ohorongo Cement is able to produce various other types of consistent high-quality cement to differentiate itself from other cement manufacturers and more importantly, cater for the needs of its customers as well as for bigger projects. Some examples include the construction of the new container terminal in Walvis Bay, as well as the airport runway and wharf at St Helena Island," said Sowden. The new composite cement plant is expected to be completed by early 2016.

Sowden emphasised that as the Namibian economy is expected to see further growth, Ohorongo Cement has ensured in advance that it has the necessary production capacity to sustainably supply cement volumes for Namibia for the future. "This includes additional bigger projects that might materialise in future. The high-quality limestone deposits close to the Ohorongo Cement plant has been rated as the best available in Namibia and will last for more than 300 years," said Sowden.

Whale Rock Cement entered the Namibian market with its Cheetah Cement brand, which led to tough competition with existing cement suppliers, leading to a price war that drove it out of the market. Its new plant will be 245km from Windhoek and will be the second cement plant in Namibia after Ohorongo Cement, which produces 500,000t/yr.

Namibia/China: China's Asian and African Business Management has teamed up with a Namibia's Whale Rock Cement to set up a US$350m cement plant. The project will see the creation of 400 jobs.

A few years ago, Whale Rock Cement came onto the Namibian market with its Cheetah Cement brand. This triggered a fierce competition with the existing cement suppliers, leading to a price war that drove Whale Rock off the market.

The plant, about 245km from the capital Windhoek, will be the second cement plant in Namibia after Ohorongo Cement, which produces 500,000t/yr. Whale Rock Cement Public Relations Officer Manfred Uxamb said that a comprehensive feasibility study has been completed and that a limestone survey has also been carried out. "Together with our partners, we have performed a comprehensive investigation of the land plot, limestone, clay, waste iron oreand gypsum," said Uxamb, adding that they had found that all these resources meet requirements. "The survey also included market research that proved that the project is feasible. The feasibility study was presented to the Government of the Republic of Namibia and approved." According to Uxamb, the area chosen for the plant has enough limestone deposits to last more than 40 years.