Displaying items by tag: Plant

Laos: A leading Thai cement company, widely speculated to be Siam Cement Group (SCG), will co-invest with Lao-Phatthana Cement Industry Co, a unit of Souksomboon Group, in the construction of a US$330m cement plant in Khammouane, Laos.

Chaovalit Ekabut, SCG's chief financial officer and vice-president for finance and investment, declined to comment on whether the Thai cement producer is SCG, but said the group continued to explore opportunities in the Asean countries.

Chittakorn Souksomboon, president of Souksomboon Group, said that the Khammouane plant will have a clinker capacity of 1.6Mt/yr. The clinker will become 2.2Mt/yr of OPC and blended cement, with half serving the Laotian market and the rest exported to Thailand. The plant is due to be completed at the end of 2015 or early 2016.

"The possible Thai partner with 100 years of history is interested in jointly investing with us because we have a 50-year concession from the Laotian government to operate a limestone mine on 3875m² nearby," said Souksomboon. The Souksomboon Group is keen to forge a partnership with a Thai cement firm because it wants to sell construction materials through a Thai hardware chain in the future.

Cement demand in Laos is forecast at 3.5Mt/yr, but supply is just 1.7Mt/yr. The landlocked country must import cement from China and Thailand. The Laotian economy is growing robustly with infrastructure projects such as roads, double-track rail and dams being developed ahead of the Asean single market comes into being in late 2015.

Souksomboon Group already runs a cement plant in Vientiane, Laos and is building a plant in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, which is due to be completed in 2014.

India: Birla Corporation is planning invest around US$154m to set up new units in four states, according to local media. The company will set up three grinding cum blending units in Madhya Pradesh, one grinding unit in Bihar, one blending unit in Uttar Pradesh and another in Jharkhand, which will have a combined capacity of 4.5Mt/yr. Birla Corporation has eight manufacturing facilities located in Pune, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gurgoan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

India: Konark Cement, a subsidiary of OCL India, is building a 1.35Mt/yr grinding plant at Salboni in West Bengal. The cement producer is also intending to use laminated polypropylene (LPP) bags at the unit to minimise wastage.

At present Konark Cement produces seven varieties of cement; OPC 53 grade, OPC 53-S grade, OPC 43 Grade, PSC, PPC (Flyash based), SRPC and masonry Cement, according to OCL India deputy executive director Indrajit Chatterji. OCL India has two cement plants at Kapilash and Rajgangpur in Orissa with a combined production capacity of 5.35Mt/yr.

Indonesia: Semen Padang is preparing to build a new cement packing plant costing US$0.92m near Pulau Baai port in Bengkulu, said marketing director Benny Wendry.

"We have already earmarked US$0.92m to build a packing factory for Semen Padang near the Pualu Baai port in Bengkulu in 2014," said Wendry. However the project is still awaiting approval from the board of directors. Wendry added that the state-owned cement producer intends to start in early 2014 with completion scheduled for 2015. Once operational the plant will produce 300,000 sacks of cement per year.

Semen Padang is also building a 3Mt/yr cement plant in West Sumatra that is scheduled for operation by 2016. The new plant will increase the company's cement production capacity to 10Mt/yr.

US: Two workers at the Staker Parson cement plant, Tucson, Arizona, were exposed to cement powder when a silo malfunctioned and dumped the material onto them on 28 October 2013. When crews from the fire department arrived, their first priority was to decontaminate the employees by washing the cement powder off them using hoses.

Both men had respiratory complaints and one man had eye irritation. Both were taken to hospital for further treatment. Two other employees worked for one hour to plug the silo to keep the cement powder from continuing to leak out. They wore protective clothing, but also had to be decontaminated and were also taken to hospital for further evaluation.

All of the men were released from the hospital shortly after the incident.

Lithuania: Akmenes Cementas, Lithuania's only cement manufacturer, is about to complete the modernisation of its Naujoji Akmene cement factory in northwestern Lithuania. It's claimed to be one of the biggest industrial projects implemented in the country since restoration of independence. A new clinker manufacturing line, which cost around Euro107m, should begin operation late in November or early in December 2013, barring delays. The line should operate for around 50 years and investments are expected to be covered within a decade. The company used it's own funds to finance the bulk of investments, while banks provided around one-third of the total funding.

"Representatives of equipment suppliers are visiting the facility now. They are checking, fine tuning, testing the equipment and adjusting the programmes. We keep our fingers crossed and hope that everything goes smoothly," said Arturas Zaremba, CEO of Akmenes Cementas.

Philippines: Thailand-based Siam Cement Group seeks to put up a manufacturing facility for fibre cement boards, smart boards and ceramic tiles, The Nation reports. These planned projects would cater to not only the domestic market but also SGC's markets across the Asean nations.

"If the products are marketable here, we plan to produce those products here. Investments would depend on market size. For example, for fibre cement board, we need (to be able to sell at least) 5Mm² to (justify the cost of putting up a facility). The current local demand is 30Mm²," said Surasak Kraiwitchai-charoen, international business director of SCG Building Materials Group in Thailand.

In the run-up to the publication of the Global Cement Directory 2014 we have released a Beta (draft) version for readers to provide corrections, clarifications or additions ahead of the final publication in late November 2013. In this week's issue of Global Cement Weekly we cover news stories on new cement plant or production upgrade plans in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Niger and Venezuela. This demonstrates how fast cement production can change around the world in just one week!

Looking at the major trends of the past year, we see a gradual re-emergence of 'developed' economies from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 - 201? - with an increase in cement demand that is patchy in the extreme. The US cement market is starting to heat up - but it starts from a historically low base. Former superstars stars like Spain and Italy are still firmly in the Doldrums and show no sign of growing, countries that are becoming used to a painfully permanent lower cement demand.

India has suffered from over-capacity (whilst at the same time building even more capacity – one wonders how the industry still manages to make a profit). China's cement industry continues to defy gravity – partly through state support and partly through central edicts as to which plants will close (handily reducing nominal overcapacity) and which will stay open. Chinese cement plants have rapidly been installing environmental abatement equipment amidst an ongoing environmental crisis in China. It remains to be seen if China can avoid a 'hard landing.' Other Asian countries are progressing well a full 15 years after the Asian Crisis.

Africa continues to get its act together and could yet become a global cement demand powerhouse. South America shows strong promise, particularly Brazil. The Middle East is a perfect example of the old saying "Be careful what you wish for."

Download the Beta version of the Global Cement Directory 2014 (free download - registration required)

Mongolia: A president of the Mongolian Alt Corporation (MAK) has announced that the Khukh Tsav cement plant will be able to produce 2Mt/yr of cement from 2014. At a state visit to the site by the Minister and the state secretary of the Construction and Urban Development Ministry, Ts Bayarsaikhan and R Erdeneburen, B Nyamtaishir of MAK asked that a quota of foreign workers be allowed to work at the plant.

Engineering firm FLSmidth has been contracted to provide machinery for the project. Once operational PC42,5 PC52,5 and PC62,5 cement will be produced at the cement plant located in Dalanjargalan Sum, Dornogovi aimag in the south-east of the country.

Niger: Aliko Dangote, head of Dangote Cement, intends to build a US$350m cement plant with a production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr in Niger. Dangote made the comments to Reuters following a meeting with President Issoufou Mahamadou in Niamey on 16 October 2013. The project will create 6000 to 7000 jobs. The plant will include a captive power plant with surplus electricity to be sold to the local power grid.

Niger currently has one cement plant, Société Nigérienne de Cimenterie, with a production capacity of 0.04Mt/yr.