Displaying items by tag: Plant

Nigeria: Madugu Cement plant to build a 5Mt/yr cement plant at Kembu in Gombe state. The producer has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project to China-based Sinoma International Engineering Company. Construction will consist of two phases, each of which will establish a production line of 2.5Mt/yr capacity. The Nigerian Tribune newspaper has reported that, when commissioned, the plant will be the second in Gombe state. The state has extensive gypsum reserves and a surplus of coal and hydroelectric power.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement says that its new 6Mt/yr cement plant at Okpella in Edo state is ready to enter cement production. The Daily Independent newspaper has reported that group invested US$1bn in the plant. China-based Sinoma International Engineering Company supplied engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services. When commissioned, the plant will employ 6000 people, according to the owner.

Dangote Cement is in the process of establishing a further 6Mt/yr cement plant at Itori in Ogun state. The launch of both plants will give the producer an active cement capacity of 41.3Mt/yr. The company says that its aim is to increase the uptake of cement in Nigeria. It said, “We still need to do more to make the cement get to the poorest of the poor.”

US: Cemex USA’s Victorville cement plant in California has won the Portland Cement Association (PCA)’s Chairman’s Safety Performance Award 2021 in the Large category. The award recognises top safety performance. The Victorville cement plant previously won the award in 2019 and 2020. Cemex USA says that the plant recorded zero incidents in 2020. Earlier in 2021, it surpassed four years without a lost time injury to any employee or contractor.

President Jaime Muguiro said “Safety is our top priority, and Victorville cement plant is demonstrating that Zero4Life is possible. We are proud of the continued commitment of our team, and their achievement is a great example of what can happen when everyone is dedicated to safety and works together to look out for one another.”

Iraq: Joint security forces have repelled militants from the Kubiasa cement plant in Al-Anbar province. Iraqi News has reported that 18 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were killed in the operation. The security forces also detonated four car bombs at the site.

There has been a significant investment in the South Korean cement industry this week with the news that Hanil Hyundai Cement has ordered a steam-based waste heat recovery (WHR) system from Japan-based Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The 22.6MW system will be used on two of the production lines at the Yeongwol plant in Gangwon Province. The supplier says that installation is expected to generate about 30% of the energy the plant needs and save around 10,000t/yr of CO₂ in the process. Delivery is scheduled for late 2022.

This order may be the first investment following the announcement in late June 2021 that the state-owned Korea Development Bank had pledged around US$870m towards supporting the cement sector in making carbon reduction upgrades by 2025. These are intended to include moving away from burning fossil fuels in cement production and increasing the use of recycling materials. At the time of the agreement between the bank and the Korea Cement Association (KCA), Hanil Hyundai Cement noted that the local alternative fuels substitution rate was 24% compared to 46% in the European Union and 68% in Germany.

Graph 1: Cement production in South Korea, 2010 – 2020. Source: Korea Cement Association

By European or American standards South Korea kept its coronavirus cases under control in 2020. A robust testing and contract tracing regime (K-Quarantine) managed to prevent the country enforcing stricter measures until late in 2020. A fourth wave of infections, currently underway in July 2021, due to the more contagious Delta variant, has started to change this. Despite being able to keep its economy open though, the construction sector still took a hit although not as bad as initially feared.

Cement production fell by 6% year-on-year to 47.5Mt in 2020 from 50.6Mt in 2019 following a downward trend since 2017. The KCA expected worse after a poor third quarter in 2020 when it was preparing for shipments to fall below the level last seen in the midst of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in the late 1990s. On top of this the industry was also potentially facing a new tax on production towards the end of 2020. One large local producer, Ssangyong C&E, reported a 5% year-on-year drop in sales to US$864m in 2020 from US$910m in 2019. However, it managed to increase its operating profit over the same period. So far in 2021 the sector faced supply shortages in the spring. The KSA blamed the winter plant maintenance schedule and a lack of railway wagons and trucks.

The timing of the Korea Development Bank investment in the cement sector is interesting given the movement on the European Union carbon border adjustment mechanism. Cement exports seem unlikely to be affected but business lobbyists like the Federation of Korean Industries are well aware of the effects schemes like this might have upon commodities like steel and aluminium in the first phase and then the implications for car production later on. Target markets for cement exports such as the US, Peru, Chile and the Philippines might all become vulnerable should carbon-based trade restrictions become more prevalent. Of course export markets remain vulnerable to more usual hindrances. For example, in March 2021 the Philippines extended its safeguard measures on cement imports to various countries including South Korea.

Following a round of market consolidation in the late 2010s, the South Korean cement sector now appears to be entering a phase of sustainable realignment. In late May 2021 Prime Minister Moon Jae-in announced plans to hasten the country’s carbon reduction targets ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled for November 2021, including a carbon tax. With cement production on a downward trend since 2017 and the coronavirus crisis far from gone it will be instructive to see how far the intervention of the Korea Development Bank will go.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos has started operation of a new production line at its Pecém grinding plant in Ceará. The US$38m upgrade brings the production capacity of the site to 1Mt/yr from 0.2Mt/yr previously. The project was suspended temporarily in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The producer also operates the integrated 2.2Mt/yr Sobral plant in Ceará and a terminal in Fortaleza. The production sites the company runs in the state are connected by railway and a further line has been extended to connect the terminal.

Botswana: Rachit Josh, the managing director of Matsiloje Portland Cement, says that the company hopes to restart production by the end of 2021. The cement producer is currently in talks with an investor to support the move by establishing a partnership, according to the Mmegi newspaper. Joshconfirmed that the company’s integrated cement plant is currently closed. The plant, which is owned by Nortex Textiles, closed in January 2018 due to competition from South African imports. When operational it produced around 30,000t/yr of cement.

South Korea: Hanil Hyundai Cement has placed an order with Japan-based Kawasaki Heavy Industries for the design and installation of a 22.6MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit at its Yeongwol cement plant in Gangwon. The WHR plant will generate power from heat from two of the plant’s production lines when commissioned in December 2022. The supplier says that it will serve 30% of the plant’s energy needs. Kawasaki Heavy Industries says it has previously supplied WHR units to Japan, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Georgia: HeidelbergCement Georgia plans to invest in additional grinding capacity at both of its cement plants. The subsidiary of Germany-based HeidelbergCement says that it will complete expansion work at both plants by the 2022 production season. It is also contemplating the possibility of clinker capacity expansions.

In early July 2021, Georgia experienced a cement shortage due to the release of pent-up demand from infrastructure projects and reduced imports from Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Germany: A consortium of Mexico-based Cemex subsidiary Cemex Deutschland, Uckerwerk Energietechnik subsidiary Enertrag and hydrogen specialist Sunfire has announced a cement industry decarbonisation project called Concrete Chemicals. The project will see sequestered CO₂ combined with hydrogen to produce hydrocarbons for use as cement fuel. The consortium has submitted a funding application to the German Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety for a trial at Cemex’s Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg, cement plant. This would help in the realisation of the plant’s 2030 carbon neutrality target. Alongside a 5000t/yr demonstration plant, the site will have a green hydrogen plant, supplied by Sunfire. When commissioned in 2025, the plant will produce synthetic fuels and other hydrocarbon fractions. The consortium is also investigating a methanol synthesis route using synthetic gas.

Europe, Middle East and Africa regional president Sergio Menendez said “We support the urgency of action to address the climate challenge and have committed to a 55% reduction in CO2 from our 1990 baseline in our European operations by 2030. Together with our industry partners, we can collectively transform ourselves into a CO₂-neutral world. Concrete Chemicals is a promising project.”