Displaying items by tag: Plant

Syria: Russian companies have met with representatives of the Syrian Ministry of Industry to discuss restoring and upgrading the Al Arabiya cement plant in Aleppo. During the visit to Syria representatives of the company also held talks about building a new cement plant, Muslimiya, according to the Prime News Agency. Negotiations were also held about renovating a steel plant in Hama province.

Uganda: Hima Cement has agreed to return land it acquired in the Mwello Parish of Tororo District to the local residents due to mistakes made by its land agent. The company’s agent, Optima Mining and Minerals, allegedly purchased land from residents who did not hold the necessary paperwork, according to the Daily Monitor newspaper. The agent then intended to apply for a lease on the land from Tororo District Land Board.

Dunstan Ndyaguma, Optima’s managing director, was advised by the commission to obtain a lawyer to learn about the land tenure system in the district. He was also described as a ‘dangerous’ man because he had manipulated local residents in his dealings with them.

Hima Cement, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, wants to build a US$250m new cement plant in the area. It has warned that the project may be moved to Kenya instead due to the difficulties in obtaining land.

Uganda: Nicolas George, the managing director of Hima Cement, has warned that a US$250m new cement plant project may be relocated to Kenya due to difficulties in obtaining land in Uganda. He made the comments to the Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters following complaints by local residents about the land purchase process, according to the Daily Monitor newspaper. The cement producer is trying to buy mineral rights in the Mwello Parish in Tororo District. Previously, it attempted to build a plant in Moroto.

George also alleged that the subsidiary of LafargeHolcim had repeatedly run up against ‘speculators with exploration licences’ with links to the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines. He asked the government to cancel such licences within two years if the owners lacked the in financial resources to develop them.

Algeria: GICA Group’s Hadjar Soud cement plant has made its first 37,000t clinker shipment to the Ivory Coast via the Port of Annaba. It is part of a 0.2Mt/yr consignment planned for 2019 from the unit, according to the Algeria Press Service. Overall, GICA intends to export 1.5Mt of clinker to African countries in 2019.

Spain: Endesa sold 0.3Mt of fly-ash from its Carboneras power plant in Almeria to cement companies in the UK and North America in 2018. The energy company also sold fly-ash to the nearby LafargeHolcim Carboneras cement plant, according to La Voz de Almería newspaper. The company has also sold 30,00t of slag and 60,000t of gypsum from its limestone plant.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has completed a new cement silo at its Kochi plant. The upgrade is part of a long-term plan to focus on exports to Southeast Asia. The cement producer intends to establish an overseas business presence outside of Japan.

Cameroon: Cimencam has inaugurated its 0.5Mt/yr Nomayos cement grinding plant. The company also launched a new logo, according to the Ecofin Agency. The new unit will manufacture the company’s MultiX CEM II 32.5 R Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and its Sublime white cement products.

The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim is planning to regain lost market share in the country since Dangote Cement started operating locally. It is planning to build a new kiln at its Figuil integrated plant in Garoua, which is due for commissioning in 2020.

The European Union’s (EU) verified CO₂ emissions figures were released earlier this week on 1 April 2019. The good news is that no cement plant is within the top 100 largest emitters. All the top spots are held by power plants, iron and steel producers and the odd airline. Indeed, out of all of the verified emissions, cement clinker or lime production only represents 7% of the total emissions. Of course this is too much if the region wants to meet its climate change commitments but it is worth remembering that other industries have a long way to go as well and they don’t necessarily face the intrinsic process challenges that clinker production has. If the general public or governments are serious about cutting CO₂ emissions then they might consider, for example, taking fewer flights with airlines before picking on the cement industry.

The EU emitted 117Mt of CO₂ from its clinker and lime producers in 2018, a 2.7% year-on-year decrease compared to 120Mt in 2017. This compares to 158Mt in 2008, giving a 26% drop in emissions over the decade to 2018. However, there are two warnings attached to this data. First, there are plants on this list that have closed between 2008 and 2018. Second, there are plants that provided no data in 2018, for example, all the plants in Bulgaria. Climate change think tank Sandbag helpfully pointed out in its analysis of the EU emissions data that industrial emissions have barely decreased since 2012. The implication here being that the drop from 2008 to 2012 was mainly due to the economic recession. Sandbag also made the assertion that 96% of the cement industry’s emissions were covered by free allocations in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) thereby de-incentivising sector willingness to decarbonise.

By country the emissions in 2018 from cement and lime roughly correspond with production capacity, although this comes with the caveat that emissions link to actual production not potential capacity. So, Germany leads followed by Spain, Italy, Poland and France. Of these Poland is a slight outlier, as will be seen below.

Table 1: Top 10 CO₂ emitting plants in the European Union in 2018. Source: European Commission.

Poland leads the count in the top 10 EU CO₂ emitting cement plants in 2018 with five plants. Greece follows with two plants. This list is deceptive as all of these plants are large ones with production capacities of 2Mt/yr and above. As it contains many of the largest plants in the EU no wonder the emissions are the highest. It is also worth considering that there are far larger plants outside of the EU.

In summary, as most readers will already know, the cement industry is a significant minority CO₂ emitter in the EU. Countries with larger cement sectors emit more CO₂ as do larger plants. So far, so obvious. Emissions are down since 2008 but this mostly seems to have stalled since 2012, bar a blip in 2017. The change though has been the rising carbon price in the EU ETS in 2018. Coincidentally the carbon price has been fairly low and stable since 2012. If the mechanism is working properly then changes should start to appear in 2019. Already in 2018 a few European cement producers announced plant closures and blamed the carbon price. Watch this space.

The Global Future Cement Conference & Exhibition on low and zero CO2 cement production will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 22 - 23 May 2019

US: Cemex USA’s Clinchfield Cement Plant in Georgia has been awarded the ISO 14001:2015 certification for its environmental management system (EMS). It is the first Cemex cement operation in the country to earn this certification. The EMS at the plant follows a continuous cycle of environmental policy: planning, support and operation, performance evaluation, then improvement.

The International Organization of Standardisation (ISO) developed ISO 14001:2015 as a standard of processes for organisations to use when setting up, improving or maintaining their environmental management systems to follow established environmental policies and requirements. The guidelines are designed to help organisations improve efficiency, reduce waste, improve overall environmental impact and manage environmental obligations.

The Clinchfield Cement Plant is also one of several Cemex sites to achieve certification from the Wildlife Habitat Council. The plant is also active in the Georgia Black Bear Project. Cemex is currently in the process of achieving ISO 14001:2015 Certification at its eight other active cement plants in the US.

Italy: Colacem says has purchased Cemitaly's Spoleto cement plant in Perugia. No value for the transaction has been disclosed, according to the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. Colacem said that it was confident that the cement sector will have a ‘significant’ role in the future. HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Italcementi acquired Cementir and the Spoleto plant in 2017. In February 2019 unions at the plant were told that the cement producer was selling it to the newly-created company Spoleto Cementir.