Displaying items by tag: Plant
ASEC Cement finalises sale of two units for US$127m
23 November 2015Egypt: ASEC Cement, part of Egypt-based Qalaa Holdings, has finalised the sale of ASEC Minya Cement and ASEC Ready Mix to Misr Cement Qena for a total of US$128m.
ASEC Minya Cement is located in Upper Egypt. It began commercial operations in August 2013, with a capacity of 2Mt/yr. ASEC Ready Mix is a producer and distributor of ready-mix concrete. The company operates six batch plants in Upper Egypt with 382,000m3 of production in 2014.
At the time of sale, ASEC Cement held 46.5% of ASEC Minya Cement and 55% of ASEC Ready Mix. Qalaa and its subsidiary National Development and Trading Company (NDT) together own 70% of ASEC Cement.
"We are pleased to announce that the sale process closed today, putting in place another cornerstone in our strategy to deleverage at both the holding and platform company levels," said Ahmed Heikal, Chairman and Founder of Qalaa Holdings. "Both ASEC Minya and ASEC Ready Mix have established themselves as critical players in the vital Upper Egyptian market and we are honoured to have worked with an exceptional management team at each of them to build them into the companies they are today."
Sindh to establish ‘zero-pollution’ cement plants
23 November 2015Pakistan: Sindh, a Province of Pakistan, has claimed that it will establish cement plants based on new technology with 0% pollution and low energy consumption.
The Sindh government has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sinohydro Corporation and Deer International Group. It will bring US$250m of foreign direct investment, create 2500 new job opportunities, generate tax revenue of US$28.4m/yr, improve peripheral economic investment and offer top quality and cheaper cements to fulfil the demand of infrastructure projects. Chairman of Deer International Group, Qaim Ali Shah, said that since Sinohydro Corporation was the world's largest water conservancy and Hydro Power Construction Company, it could efficiently exploit the indigenous resources available at Sindh.
PPC commissions 600,000t/yr cement plant in Rwanda
20 November 2015Rwanda: PPC has commissioned its 600,000t/yr cement plant in Rwanda to offset declining sales in South Africa as its expansion into African cement markets gathers pace. The company plans to derive 40% of its revenues from the rest of Africa by 2017.
"We see the population doubling and becoming wealthier, a lot of infrastructure spend taking place and new cities being built that aren't there today," said Darryll Castle, PPC's Chief Executive. "If we can maintain our market share and exposure in Africa, we have to double the size of the business in well under 10 years. We see Africa as a very positive environment and PPC becoming a major player in a big growth area."
Castle said that the company ultimately saw PPC as a global player, but were focusing on Africa first, although it would be open to global opportunities when they arose. The new vision is for PPC to become a world-class supplier of materials and solutions to the basic services sector and establish a vertically-integrated materials business. This business unit will house PPC's ready-mix, aggregates and related building materials businesses to offer clients end-to-end solutions. A bolt-on acquisition has been earmarked for early 2016. Castle stressed that 70 – 80% of PPC's focus would remain on its core product of cement, but over time it would gain earnings and revenue that was not currently core to its business.
According to Castle, construction of the US$280m, 1Mt/yr cement plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the US$85m, 700,000t/yr mill in Harare were progressing well, with both on track for commissioning at the end of 2016. He said that the 1.4Mt/yr cement plant in Ethiopia would cost around US$170m, with commissioning scheduled for the second quarter of 2017.
Dangote to spend US$450m on cement plant expansion in Ethiopia
19 November 2015Ethiopia: Dangote Cement is to invest US$450m to double its current production capacity to 5Mt/yr at its Oromia Plant. The Nigerian cement producer has already received a 36ha plot of land from Oromia State, near the plant's site in Mugher, Adebern Wereda.
The company requested the land from Oromia Investment Commission in September 2015. Now it is processing right of way issues at Wereda level. The new plant will employ 1300 people when it is completed, according to All Africa. The company also intends to open a bag factory to supply packaging for Dangote and others.
Ethiopia is estimated to have a cement production capacity of 15.1Mt/yr yet actual production is only 10Mt/yr. Cement production capacity is expected to reach 27Mt/yr by the end of country's second Growth and Transformation Plan.
Breedon Aggregates buys Hope Construction Materials for Euro480m
18 November 2015UK: Breedon Aggregates plans to acquire Hope Construction Materials for Euro480m. In a statement, Breedon said that the transaction would create 'the UK's leading independent producer of cement, concrete and aggregates.'
Hope has 160 operational sites, including a cement works in Derbyshire, five quarries and 152 concrete plants. In the first six months of 2015, Hope sold 1.6Mt of cement, 4.7Mt of aggregate and 2.3Mm3 of concrete, generating revenue of Euro407m and underlying earnings before interest depreciation and amortisation of Euro52.8m.
The acquisition is conditional upon UK competition authority approval and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2016. "This acquisition is well-timed, with UK construction output forecast to expand by around 15% over the next four years and volumes of all our major products expected to grow strongly," said Peter Tom, Breedon Executive Chairman. "We are confident that we will be able to continue delivering significant value for our shareholders in the coming years, with an even stronger platform for growth."
The Chief Executive of Aggregate Industries, part of LafargeHolcim, Pat Ward, will take over as Breedon Chief Executive early in 2016.
Claudius Peters' ETA Cooler exceeds 13,000t/day in China
17 November 2015China: The ETA Cooler, the concept for cooling clinker in the cement making process announced by Claudius Peters Projects GmbH in 2004, has reached a new capacity milestone with a more than 13,000t/day model going into production earlier in 2015 in China.
The ETA Cooler principle was introduced in 2004 with a 2000t/day installation at a Holcim cement plant in Switzerland. Over the last decade, Claudius Peters Projects has progressively offered the market increasingly higher capacity models. It has now reached 13,000t/day, currently the world's highest capacity cement line production. The company has said that even higher capacity is feasible.
Due to its design, no dust removal system is required with ETA Cooler and the relatively long stroke action means a low grate speed, which in turn means less wear and maintenance. As there are no obstructions to the clinker flow in this moving floor technology, high transport efficiency is also achieved, with uniform cooling, thus improving the quality of the clinker and in turn the quality of cement produced, according to Claudius Peters Projects. The ETA Cooler has a very low construction profile and modular design, allowing it to be retrofit to existing cement plants.
Loesche supplies two vertical roller mills to Arabian Cement Company
13 November 2015Saudi Arabia: Arabian Cement Company (ACC) is planning to build a new 10,000t/day brownfield cement line in Rabigh.
In order to increase the cement grinding capacities in phase 1, prior to the completion of the new line in Phase 2, ACC placed an order with China National Building Materials Group Corporation (CNBM) for a grinding plant, including two Loesche vertical roller mills.
The project execution will be done on a fast-track concept, which ensures a project schedule of only 13 months. Loesche will supply two large vertical roller mills of Type LM 63.3+3 with a table diameter of 6.3m and a main drive size of 7400kW. Under the fast-track concept, Loesche will not only supply the mills, but also all process related equipment like process filters, process fans, hot gas generators, as well as the complete basic engineering of the grinding plant to ensure a state-of-the-art plant design.
PT Semen Indoensia plans feasibility study for cement plant in Aceh
12 November 2015Indonesia: PT Semen Indonesia is conducting a feasibility study in Aceh in connection with its plan to build a cement plant in Pidie, Aceh.
"Our partner is ready to build a cement plant in Aceh. We are now in the process of completing the feasibility study. The ground-breaking ceremony is expected to take place in 2016 if all the processes go well," said the company's President Director, Suparni. He noted that around US$257 – 294m will be invested to develop the 3Mt/yr cement plant, excluding the infrastructure cost. He added that the company will set up a joint venture for the project with a local company in which PT Semen Indonesia will later be the majority stockholder, with more than 70%. "It is forecast that the construction will be completed in 2019 - 2020," said Suparni.
The cement plant would target consumers in the eastern parts of Sumatra and North Sumatra, with a possibility of exporting some of its production to Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore. It will also target Bangladesh in view of the country's cement needs, which have so far only been met through imports. "Bangladesh only has one cement plant that cannot fully meet the country's demands. Around 85% of the country's needs are met through imports," said Suparni.
Suparni claimed that the efforts to boost exports will also be made following the completion of Semen Indonesia's 3Mt/yr Indarung VI plant in West Sumatra and a 3Mt/yr plant in Rembang, Central Java, in the third quarter of 2016.
Anouar Invest to launch cement plant in Laâyoune
11 November 2015Morocco: Holding company Anouar Invest plans to build a 500,000t/yr cement plant in Laâyoune as part of the new southern provinces development projects in infrastructure and housing. With an investment package of US$30m, Ciement Sud (CIMSUD) will start operations by July 2017. The plant will be located in the area in Foum El Oued, Laâyoune. The group has also started construction of a cement plant in Settat with a budget of US$300m. It will produce 2.2Mt/yr of cement and will be in operation late 2018.
Uzbekistan/Turkey: The Turkish Dal Engineering Group plans to commission a new 1.5Mt/yr cement plant in Surkhandarya by late 2017. A Turkish company and Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC) have signed a memorandum on cooperation for the construction of the cement plant.
The US$225m cement plant will potentially be financed by a US$90m loan from the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan, commercial banks loans totalling US$110m and the equity of AMMC, worth US$24.4m.
Uzbekistan currently has six cement plants with a total installed capacity of more than 7Mt/yr. The largest of them are Kyzylkumcement (3.08Mt/yr), Akhangarancement (1.74Mt/yr) and JSC Kuvasaycement (920,000t/yr). Cement production in Uzbekistan in 2014 increased by 5.1% to 7.35Mt.