Displaying items by tag: Plant

South Africa: Chinese cement producer Jidong Cement has secured US$86.6m loan towards building a new cement plant at Koedoeskop in the northern state of Limpopo, South Africa. The 1Mt/yr greenfield project, Mamba Cement, comprises Jidong Cement and the China-African Development Fund, Wiphold.

"A master finance agreement was entered into between Nedbank Capital, Bank of China and a special-purpose vehicle known as Mamba Cement Company," said Nedbank head of infrastructure Brett Botha. South African bank Nedbank signed an agreement with Bank of China for the project on 27 March 2013.

Greece: Heracles Cement has terminated operations at its plant in Halkida, as part of a restructuring program of its production structure. The production unit at Halkida has been idle since July 2011.

The plant at Halkida was hit by a plunge in construction activity in Attica, with sales falling by 80% between 2008 and 2013. The company said it would seek every possible solution to minimise the effect of its decision to close down the unit on its 236 workers. Heracles Cement said the decision will burden its 2013 results by Euro57m but it expects a positive impact of Euro18m/yr in subsequent years.

The restructuring programme is aimed to help the Lafarge subsidiary cope with Greece's recession in its construction sector. Under the new structure, Heracles Cement will continue cement production from its two units in Volos and Evia, exploiting their comparative advantages, mainly their port facilities, to support the group's activities in Greece and in the wider Mediterranean region.

Myanmar: Indonesia's largest cement producer PT Semen Indonesia, formerly Semen Gresik, has announced that it will build a US$200m cement plant in Myanmar early in 2014 as part of its expansion into the Southeast Asian market.

The company may pitch about US$70m for the plant, which it would set up with its Myanmar partners, as it aimed to control about a 40% stake in the planned joint venture, said president director Dwi Soetjipto in a press event reported by the Jakarta Post. The construction of the cement plant, designated with a capacity of 1Mt/yr, is scheduled to start in early 2014, while operations are expected to begin in 2017. Based on the firm's plan, the new plant will serve the Myanmar market and neighbouring countries like Thailand and Bangladesh.

The move by Semen Indonesia follows its acquisition of Vietnam's largest cement producer, Thang Long Cement Joint Stock Company, in late 2012. It now aims to expand its annual capacity to 6.5Mt/yr from 2.3Mt/yr by establishing two new plants. At home in Indonesia, Semen Indonesia is also preparing for capacity upgrades with the construction of cement plants in Rembang, Central Java and Padang, West Sumatra, both with production capacities of over 2.5Mt/yr.

In 2013 the firm has targeted a domestic market share of up to 44%, up from 41% in 2012, supported by increased output to around 27Mt from 22.6Mt in 2012, according to Dwi. The overall domestic cement market is estimated to increase by more than 10% to 6Mt in 2013, according to the Indonesian Cement Association.

Spain: Cement producer Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) is considering the closure of one of its production units in Spain, according to Juan Bejar Ochoa, CEO of the company's majority shareholder FCC. The move looks likely to affect one of the three factories in northern Spain or one of the two plants in Catalonia. Bejar justified the measure by highlighting the 20% decrease in Spanish market demand in 2012. The decision on which unit will be shut down will be taken after analyses of transport and production costs.

India: Production at the South India Cement plant in Malkhed, Sedam Taluk, has recently restarted after a mothball and upgrade period that had lasted several years. N M Hemnur, regional manager of South India Cements, said that the factory's production capacity had been increased to 30,000t/yr but that it would dramatically increase to 1Mt/yr in the future.

Russia: Eurocement has announced the completion of its 3Mt/yr Podgorensky cement plant in the Voronezh Region. The Russian cement producer invested Euro424m in the project that it expects to make back within 12 years. Construction took three years with completion in December 2012. The plant has generated 1000 jobs for local residents. Equipment for the plant was supplied by FLSmidth.

Commissioning and start-up work has been conducted on the plant's production facilities since the start of 2013. When the Podgorensky cement plant reaches its full operational capacity, the portion of Eurocement Group's total cement output produced by dry production will increase from 13% to 25%.

Japan: UBE Industries plans to install a generator powered by waste heat at its cement plant in Kanda, Fukuoka Prefecture. The generator will meet about 40% of the plant's electric power consumption reducing production costs. The US$52.1m project will start providing power as early as the second half of 2015.

The Kanda plant currently produces 11% of its own electricity using a diesel generator. UBE's decision follows similar schemes at UBE's two other domestic cement plants in Japan. The company previously put off this upgrade because of a lull in domestic demand for cement. UBE is acting now because Kyushu Electric Power Co. is preparing for a rate increase in April 2013 that will impact upon production costs.

Ghana: HeidelbergCement is constructing a new cement mill with a capacity of 0.8Mt/yr at its grinding plant in the port city of Takoradi. The investment of US$30m also includes the construction of a clinker silo, a new cement silo and the installation of cement bag packing and dispatch facilities. Commissioning of the new mill is scheduled for late 2014.

"The construction of the new cement mill in Ghana is another project in the context of our strategy of expanding our clinker and cement capacities in growth markets. In particular the countries of sub-Saharan Africa have a very high growth potential due to their early stage of industrialisation and rich natural resources," said Dr Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement. Ghana now holds the company's largest capacity in west Africa.

In November 2012 HeidelbergCement inaugurated a new 1Mt/yr cement mill at its grinding plant in Tema, some 25 km east of the capital city of Accra. Upon completion of the new mill at Takoradi, HeidelbergCement's total cement production capacity in Ghana will be 4.4Mt/yr.

Burkina Faso: Germany's HeidelbergCement, together with local partners, is constructing a new US$50m cement grinding plant with a capacity of 0.65Mt/yr near the Burkina Faso capital city of Ouagadougou.

"The construction of the new cement grinding plant is part of our strategy of expanding our clinker and cement capacities in growth markets," said Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the group's managing board. "These include, in particular, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. For many years, we have exported cement to Burkina Faso from our grinding plant in Togo. Our new plant will strengthen our position in the country as well as in the whole region."

In the future HeidelbergCement's grinding facilities in Burkina Faso and the neighbouring countries of Togo, Benin and Ghana, will also receive their clinker from the a clinker plant in Togo. This facility will be commissioned in early 2015.

It is expected that the grinding plant project will stimulate improvement in local infrastructure and housing. It is expected to create more than 100 jobs at the plant, with even more indirect jobs locally. The project is to be conducted within the framework of a joint venture between HeidelbergCement and local partners and will be commissioned in late 2014.

Indonesia: Thai cement giant Siam Cement Group (SCG) will further expand its presence in Indonesia by building a new cement plant and acquiring more companies in the country, according to a company executive.

Chief finance officer Chaovalit Ekabut said that SCG expected to start the construction of a greenfield cement plant in Sukabumi, West Java with a total investment of US$356m."We expect to start construction this year and finish by 2015. We hope to commence operations at this cement plant in the second half of 2015," Chaovalit said on 27 February 2013.The cement plant will have a production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr.

Chaovalit added that SCG had decided to be careful and make small-scale investments in the cement market in Indonesia, which has grown rapidly on the back of increased housing demand and infrastructure projects.

"Some projections calculate that cement capacity (in Indonesia) may reach 100Mt/yr in another five to six years. This is very dangerous because you face a kind of bubble. When the demand seems to be very high, people build more and more plants and then everything stops and you end up having so much extra capacity," Chaovalit said."I hope we shall not fall into the same trap again. Companies should look at the market and continue to invest to serve the demand and not to overexploit something that is not real."