Displaying items by tag: Plant

Nepal: Udayapur Cement’s production is being reduced due to power cuts. The plant has a production capacity of 800t/day of clinker but at times it has been reduced to only just 100t/day, according to the Republica newspaper. The cement producer says that the cuts have cost it over US$0.4m.

The electricity outages have also damaged machinery such as gears in cement-packaging equipment and raised general costs through repeated start-ups. The unit suffered 62 power cuts from 15 January to 2 February 2019 lasting a total of 23 hours. As many as six stoppages in a single day have been reported.

The Nepal Electricity Authority supplies electricity to the plant. It has blamed the ‘incompetence’ of officials at a substation.

Spain: LafargeHolcim España plans to spend Euro4m on upgrades to its Sagunto cement plant, according to the Las Provincias newspaper. The work will include automating the laboratory, adding a new control system for the plant, making environmental changes, improving lighting and acoustics and remodelling the unit’s white cement line.

Libya: The Libyan Fund for Internal Investment and Development and the National Company for Building Material Industry have signed a partnership deal to build a 1.6Mt/yr cement plant at Nalut. The agreement follows collaboration between the Presidential Council and the Central Bank of Libya in order to build the economy, according to the Libya Observer.

India: Birla Corporation’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose due to increased sales of blended cement in the last quarter of 2018. Blended cements represented 89% of its total sales volumes compared to 85% in the same period in 2017.

The company’s net sales grew by 14.6% to US$653m in the nine months to the end of 2018 from US$569m in the same period in 2017. Its EBITDA rose by 17.1% to US$96.8m from US$82.7m. Its cement production increased by 10.5% to 9.86Mt from 8.92Mt and its cement sales increased by 9.9% to 9.79Mt from 8.92Mt. It said that better sales in key markets had offset raw material price rises such as petcoke, coal and diesel. It noted that the price of diesel had risen by over 20% in the reporting period although it had started to soften in the most recent quarter.

The cement producer held a ground breaking ceremony in late January 2019 for a new plant being built by its RCCPL subsidiary at Yavatmai district in Maharashtra. The 3.9Mt/yr unit has an investment of US$342m and it includes a 40MW captive power plant and a 10.6MW waste heat recovery (WHR) system. Commissioning is scheduled for the 2021 – 2022 financial year. The company is also planning to upgrade RCCPL’s plant at Kundanganj with 1.2Mt/yr of additional production capacity. Other new projects include a 12.25MW WHR system at Maihar that is expected to be commissioned in mid-2019. It is building solar power plants at Maihar, Chanderia and Satna with 11MW, 3.6MW and 1.2MW capacity respectively. Birla Corporation also said that restrictions on using explosives placed on limestone mining at Chanderia in Rajasthan had increased its costs.

Uzbekistan: China’s Huaxin Cement plans to build a new 1.2Mt/yr cement plant in the Zafarabad district of Jizzakh region for US$150m. The unit will be commissioned in December 2019, according to the Trend News Agency. It intends to export about 0.12Mt of cement during the first stage of production. As part of the project, Huaxin Cement’s local subsidiary, Huaxin Cement Jizzakh, has been temporarily exempted from paying various tariffs, including income, property, custom and added taxes.

Uzbekistan: Representatives of France’s Freyssinet, a civil engineering company, have met with Uzbekistan Railways to discuss building a new 1Mt/yr cement plant in the Pakhtachi district of Samarkand. The unit will be used to provide cement and related products to the railway company. The construction of new infrastructure projects - including railway lines, subway lines and bridges – was also talked about at the meeting.

Algeria: The Aïn Touta Cement (SCIMAT) plant near Batna has spent US$10m on a new filter. The investment is part of a group of improvements intended to increase production at the unit in 2019, according to Le Courrier d'Algérie newspaper. The company is also implementing a new integrated administration system.

Ivory Coast: A new cement plant is being planned for construction near Gagnoa. Mayor Issouf Diabaté made the announcement to the city council, according to the Agence Ivoirienne de Presse. Sales tests on cement from the company building the plant are being conducted in the local market. The preferred location for the plant is in Galbré sub-prefecture between Soubré and Gagnoa.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 16.5% year-on-year to US$51.3m in the six months to 31 December 2018 from US$63.7m in the same period in 2017. The cement producer said that its cost of sales rose by 14.2% due to mounting packaging, coal and other fuel prices. Its revenue grew by 6.2% to US$250m from US$235m. It attributed this to higher export volumes of cement and clinker. Its local sales of cement and clinker fell by 8.4% to 2.99Mt from 3.27Mt. Exports more than doubled to 1.02Mt from 0.5Mt. Accordingly, overall sales volumes increased by 6.8% to 4.01Mt from 3.76Mt.

The company reported that levelling work at its Samawah 1.2Mt/yr integrated cement plant project in Iraq started in January 2019. Civil work is scheduled to start in March 2019 and commercial production at the unit planned to start in mid-2020.

Pakistan: Power Cement has provided an update on construction work towards building a third line at its Nooriabad plant. 97% of the equipment ordered from Denmark’s FLSmdith has been received. 22% of errection work has been completed. The design phase of a new 40MW grid station and its fixing has been completed and civil work has commenced. Overall civil work is reported 91% complete.

The cement producer ordered the new 7700t/day line from FLSmidth in 2017. China’s TEPC has been handling the construction and errection contract. China’s CECC Tianjin (Pakistan) Electric Power Construction has been in charge of civil construction.