Displaying items by tag: Netherlands
Uzbekistan: JV Pro Euro Cement has announced the start of construction of an integrated cement plant in Namangan Region. Trend News Agency has reported that Czech Republic-based PSP Engineering will oversee procurement, construction and installation of the plant, with the support of Netherlands-based Arona International. The plant’s scheduled completion date is in mid-2023.
Cementir appoints 2020 - 2022 board
22 April 2020Italy/The Netherlands: Cementir Holding has appointed the board of directors for the period 2020 - 2022 made up of nine members: Francesco Caltagirone as executive director, with Azzurra Caltagirone, Alessandro Caltagirone, Edoardo Caltagirone, Saverio Caltagirone, Fabio Corsico, Paolo Di Benedetto, Veronica De Romanis and Chiara Mancini, all acting as non-executive directors.
As the holding company is based in the Netherlands, directors Paolo Di Benedetto, Veronica De Romanis and Chiara Mancini have declared that they meet the independence requirements pursuant to the Dutch Self-Discipline Code. The meeting also appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants NV as auditor for the years 2021 - 2030. Cementir Holding reported a net profit attributable to shareholders of Euro83.7m for 2019.
Sesco Group buys terminal in the Netherlands
04 March 2020Netherlands: Royal Cement Benelux, part of Royal El Minya Cement and the Sesco Group, has acquired a new 18,500m2 facility in the port of Schiedam near Rotterdam. The new facility, which includes 13,500m2 combined office, storage and operating space will be the company’s second European location. Available on the premises is 160 M1 Quay, which can receive ships up to 15,000dwt.
“The opening of Royal Cement Benelux’s new Schiedam facility is an important step towards the ambition to develop the European market,” said Martin Bakker, general manager of Royal Cement Benelux. The company intends to target its white cement products from the terminal to Germany by barge, to several locations in Belgium and the Netherlands by inland rivers and to the UK by sea.
The new location is intended to be first of several expansions for the company in 2020. Royal Cement Benelux says it wants to take former business in Western Europe from CBR since it stopped white cement production. The group is also opening an Italian terminal.
ENCI Maastricht plant closure to make 50 jobless
10 December 2019Netherlands: Germany’s HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Eerste Nederland Cement Industrie (ENCI) announced on 9 December 2019 the upcoming closure of its former 1.8Mt/yr integrated Maastricht plant in 2020. Het Belang van Limburg has reported that the Maastricht plant, which stepped down to grinding-only in March 2019 after 91 years’ kiln operation, received an insufficient supply of clinker from ENCI’s sister company CBR Cement’s 1.5Mt/yr Lixhe plant in Wallonia, Belgium to guarantee profitable production.
Clinker grinding continues at ENCI’s 1.4Mt/yr IJmuiden and 0.6Mt/yr Rotterdam grinding plants, each of which has better access to clinker imports due to their proximity to deepwater ports.
Cementir Holding moves registered office to the Netherlands
07 October 2019Netherlands: Cementir Holding has moved its registered office to the Netherlands. The building materials producer approved the decision in late June 2019. The transfer will not affect the company’s listing on the Italian Stock Exchange or its tax residence, which will remain in Italy. At the time chairman Francesco Caltagirone, Jr said that the decision to move the company’s headquarters was a, “purely technical choice that in no way disregards our group's deep Italian roots.”
Cementir Holding is a multinational manufacturer of grey and white cement, ready-mixed concrete, aggregates and concrete products, exporting to over 70 countries worldwide. It is a global leader in white cement and the group employs approximately 3100 people in 18 countries. The group sold its principal Italian business, Cementir Italia, and its shares in related companies to Italcementi in early 2018.
Hoffmeier’s mill shells on course for Dubai
22 August 2019UAE: Three mill shells for iron ore processing have been constructed and successfully conveyed to Antwerp today by Hoffmeier. From there, they will embark for a productive life in the UAE.
Remi Le Grand appointed as Regional Sales Director for Max-AI for Bulk Handling Systems
24 July 2019Netherlands: Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) has appointed Remi Le Grand as Regional Sales Director for Max-AI. He will be responsible for the product sales team and business development in Europe. Previously, Le Grand spent six years in sales with BHS-subsidiary Nihot Recycling Technology based in Amsterdam.
Refuse-derived legislation in the Netherlands?
17 July 2019The UK waste fuels industry is facing potential challenge from changing Dutch environmental legislation. As part of its new National Climate Agreement the government in the Netherlands is considering imposing a tariff of Euro32/t on imported refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from the start of January 2020. It also wants to add a CO2 tax of Euro30/t on industrial emitters from the start of 2021.
This is bad news for the UK’s waste export market because 1.28Mt or 44% of exported waste fuels from the UK in 2018 went to the Netherlands. The majority of this was RDF. That was more than the next two biggest destinations, Sweden and Germany, combined. Andy Hill of Cynosure Partners summed up the UK situation in the June 2019 issue of Global Cement Magazine when he said, “The UK generates more far more waste than it has landfill, recycling and alternative fuel capacity combined. Quite simply, that’s why the UK exports and has become a leading force in Europe in terms of RDF and solid recovered fuel (SRF) exports.”
Graph 1: International Waste Shipments exported from England, 2011 – 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.
Graph 2: Destinations of English waste fuels exports in 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.
Waste management companies and their representative associations on both sides of the North Sea are not taking this terribly well. Robert Corijn, chair of the RDF Industry Group, a European waste organisation, summed up his members response by pointing out both the environmental cost of the new legislation and the risk to jobs in the UK. “RDF export forms a vital and flexible part of the UK’s waste management system, supporting over 6800 additional jobs in the UK, and saving over 0.7Mt/yr CO2e emissions.” Robert Loos of the Dutch Waste Management Association made a similar response questioning what exactly the Dutch government was attempting to achieve.
Steve Burton, one of the directors of UK-fuels producer Andusia, went further by saying that the Dutch had proposed the move on environmental grounds because it has an incineration capacity of 8Mt/yr but produces only 6Mt/yr of waste. “So they think that by setting a tax it will significantly curtail how much gets incinerated in the Netherlands and thus produce less CO2. All very sensible if you consider CO2 in isolation in your own country. However, the Dutch Government aren’t looking at the bigger picture…” He then went on to point out that the RDF would then either get burnt elsewhere or landfilled resulting in no overall CO2 emissions reduction. His further assessment, which you can read here, goes on to speculate amongst other things that Dutch Energy for Waste (EFW) plants could end up having to cut their gate fees by more than the import tariff in order to keep running. The state-owned EFW plants would then made a loss for the tax payers until the market stabilised. It should be noted that the data from the Environment Agency indicates that Andusia exported just under 38,000t of RDF to the Netherlands in 2018.
The more prickly issues of using waste fuels may prove tricky for Dutch legislators. Corijn’s distinction above of using CO2e for the savings from RDF usage is important in this argument since burning RDF and alternative fuels, either for generating energy or making cement, still releases CO2. In the European Union (EU) it’s the biomass fraction of RDF that’s important for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the like because biomass emissions are counted as carbon-neutral. Remove this effect and the benefit of waste fuels are more to do with the waste hierarchy and reusing materials rather than leaving them to rot and release methane, a gas with a more potent global warming effect than CO2. Despite this, at face value, importing rubbish and then burning it to release yet more unwanted CO2 may seem nonsensical to the parliamentarians. Perhaps the other thing they should consider is that waste-derived fuels are manufactured products to set specifications. On-going arguments around the world about the developed world ‘exporting its rubbish’ frequently ignore this point.
Since the new Dutch National Climate Agreement is currently at the proposal stage it has a long way to go before it becomes law. First it has to be turned into legislation and then this has to be approved by the Dutch Parliament. As indicated so far the waste management industry will continue to fight its corner with vigour.
Holcim Nederland Bouwmaterialen receives certification from Concrete Sustainability Council
16 July 2019Netherlands: Holcim Nederland Bouwmaterialen has recevied certification from the Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) for its five concrete plants. The certification process was handled by Kiwa Netherlands.
Verder Group to buy Microtrac and MicrotracBEL
04 June 2019US: The Netherlands Verder Group has entered into an agreement to acquire US-based Microtrac and Japan’s MicrotracBEL from Nikkiso. Verder's Scientific Division will extend its product portfolio with product lines for particle characterisation by laser diffraction, dynamic light scattering and surface analysis.
“With Microtrac and MicrotracBEL two technological leaders in particle and surface analysis are united under the roof of Verder Scientific. We look forward to welcoming the Microtrac and MicrotracBEL teams to our group. Both companies will have access to additional resources to push international expansion and extend its innovative product range”, said Jürgen Pankratz, chief executive officer (CEO) of Verder Scientific.
Microtrac is a manufacturer of instruments for particle analysis that use laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering technologies. The instruments are used both for industrial applications and material research. Microtrac has two units in the US at Montgomeryville and York in Pennsylvania
MicrotracBEL is a manufacturer of instruments for surface area and porosity analysis applying adsorption technologies. The instruments are used in research intense fields for particle characterisation. MicrotracBEL has three units in Japan based in Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya.
Microtrac and MicrotracBEL will maintain their headquarters in the US and Japan respectively and these locations will also be used to support further expansion of the Verder Group. The existing Mictrotrac and MicrotracBEL management team will continue to be in charge. No value for the transaction has been disclosed.