Displaying items by tag: Plant

India: Reliance Cement Company Limited is planning to start production in Bengal. The company wants to set up a 3Mt/yr plant at Raghunathpur in the Purulia district.

Reliance Cement plans to invest US$100m in the project and has submitted its letter of intent to the Bengal state government. The government is likely to highlight the project as it prepares its 200-day performance report to be unveiled in December 2011.

The Bengal unit will be the third plant from Reliance Cement as the company embarks on a capacity expansion plan to take production to 50Mt/yr. Projects with a capacity of 5 Mt/yr were announced in 2010 for Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In 2008, the company secured limestone-mining licences at Satna in Madhya Pradesh.

Paraguay: Paraguayan officials have asked for Iranian assistance in building a cement plant. The issue was raised during a meeting between Paraguayan Parliament Speaker Victor Bogado and Iran's envoy to the country's capital Asuncion, Hojjatollah Soltani.

At the meeting Bogado noted that although a private sector Paraguayan company owns the Calicia mines, which are sufficient for producing cement for two centuries, his country required Iran's expertise to build a cement production plant. He reminded fellow attendees that at present Paraguay owns several small and medium-size cement production plants, but that it still imports cement from abroad.

Iran has in recent years expanded friendly ties with Latin America. Since taking office in 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expanded Iran's cooperation with many Latin American states, including Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. Ahmadinejad voiced Tehran's readiness to expand all-out ties and cooperation with Asuncion to his Paraguayan counterpart Fernando Lugo Mendez in March 2011.

Nigeria: Cement imports in Nigeria may begin to wind down soon, as the management of Dangote cement has concluded arrangements to finally launch its new 6Mt/yr cement plant in Ibese, Ogun State. Dangote Group additionally revealed that production at Gboko plant would soon be boosted because the company has almost concluded its expansion process in the plant to hit 4Mt/yr. The Gboko plant's current output is 3.5Mt/yr.

Dangote said that with 4Mt/yr in Gboko, about 10Mt/yr in Obajana and 6Mt/yr in Ibese, Dangote's cement production capacity will hit 20Mt/yr by the end of 2011. Nigerian demand is reportedly around 17Mt/yr. "What the Dangote Group alone will be producing will be far more than the country's demand, giving room for the group to commence cement exports to other African countries," said Dangote Group in a statement.

The group stated that by having cement plant in 14 different African countries, Dangote Cement has emerged as Africa's largest and most widespread cement producer, present in Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana and Senegal. Dangote's plan, according to the company, was to ensure that Africa remains self-sufficient in cement production and in making the products easily available and affordable to end users.

The group was also keen to stress the benefits of increased production to its shareholders, with the Special Advisor to Aliko Dangote, Joseph Makoju, saying, "Very soon, the new lines in Obajana and Ibese will commence full production. By then the local capacity and output will be far more than the local demand of cement and that will set the scene for exporting our products. This will lead to increased product (sales), more revenue for the company and better returns for the shareholders."

Indonesia: HeidelbergCement plans to invest USD500m in a plant on Indonesia's Java island, Indonesia's trade minister Gita Wirjawan announced on 19 October 2011.

Indonesia's cement sales, an indicator of economic growth in Southeast Asia's largest economy, rose 52% in September 2011 year-on-year due to increasing property and infrastructure building.

Cement sales volumes reached 3.8Mt, from 2.5Mt in September 2010 according to Urip Trimuryono, chairman of the Indonesian Cement Association. Sales in August 2011 had dipped 0.3% year-on-year, due to slower activity during the Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr holiday. Trimuryono forecast full year 2011 cement sales would grow 14%, with growth moderating next year to 10%.

Mozambique: A new cement plant in the southern province of Maputo is scheduled to start construction in June 2012. Budgeted at USD78m, the project is being developed by the Chinese company Africa Great Wall Cement Manufacturer, according to the country's provincial director of Trade and Industry, Fanieta Manjate.

The factory will be built in Chichuo, near Magude, covering an area of 80 hectares. The plant will have the capacity to produce up to

500,000t/yr when it starts operating at the end of 2012 or early 2013. Initially the construction work had been scheduled to start in June 2011.

Manjate stated that the company is currently mobilising equipment and building houses to accommodate the staff who will be involved in developing the project. The Environmental Impact Study has already been approved and families living in the area are being relocated to make way for the development of the project.

The Magude plant becomes the third cement factory set up by Chinese investors in Mozambique. The first in Salamanga, Maputo province, is currently under construction at a cost of USD72m with an expected production capacity of 800,000t/yr. The second in Boane, GS Cement, has an investment of USD100m and it will have the capacity to produce 550,000t/yr. Along with domestic upgrade projects the country's cement production could jump from the current level of 1.3Mt/yr to reach 4Mt/yr by 2013.

Hungary: The Austrian construction group Strabag SE has invested some Euro270m in the construction of a new cement plant in southern Hungary, according to Strabag's CEO Hans-Peter Haselsteiner. Strabag will work with its partner Austrian Lafarge Cement CE Holding on the construction of the 1.25Mt/yr facility. The plant will be used exclusively for Strabag's own construction activities, bringing operational savings to the group.

Haselsteiner expects depression in the construction industry over the upcoming years, but remains positive in the long run.

Indonesia: Lafarge is planning to build a new cement plant in Langkat district in North Sumatra. The USD406m, 1.5Mt/yr plant is expected to be open for business by 2015. The head of North Sumatra Mines and Energy Office, Iskandarsyah, said "No license has been issued for Lafarge which will build cement plants in Kuala and Bahorok, Langkat." The head of the North Sumatra provincial Industry and Trade office, T Nilfan Shahari reitterated earlier announcements that new cement plants were welcome in the region.

The 300 hectares for the cement plant which will be located in Parit Bindu village, Kuala sub-district. 73 hectares are in Batu Katak village, Bahorok sub-district and another 227 hectares in Batu Katak Bahorok village, which is rich in natural limestone.

Russia: Danish cement plant supplier FLSmidth has won two recent orders to build cement plants in Russia. FLSmidth said it would build a complete cement plant for Kaluga Cement Plant LLC in the Kaluga province, 300km southwest of Moscow in a deal worth Euro150m. Last week, the company also announced a preliminary deal for a separate 8500t/day cement plant in Russia, which is expected to be worth over Euro100m. At nearly 3Mt/yr this kiln will be the largest in Europe.

FLSmidth's chief executive announced that Russia is now seen as the most promising market for such projects. "This confirms what we have long said. There is very big potential in Russia," said chief executive Jorgen Huno Rasmussen. "It is the most promising market we see at the moment."

Rasmussen also said that the big potential in Russia for cement plant sales stemmed from high economic growth, based largely on high energy prices and from the age of existing cement production capacity. "Around 85% of the existing cement capacity is outdated and needs to be replaced," Rasmussen said. The company is in contact with several other potential customers in Russia.

Iran: Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) has announced that Iran produced 23.41Mt of cement in the first four months of the current Iranian year (21 March 2011 to 22 July 2011) showing a 19% rise compared with the same period in 2010.

The report added that Iranian companies produced 6.37Mt in Tir (4th month in the solar calendar, 22 June 2011 – 22 July 2011). Mohammad Hassan Pourkhalil, the secretary of the Cement Industry Contractors Union, stated that Iran exported 0.94Mt of cement in this month. Pourkhalil added that Iran's exports of cement and clinker surpassed 3.40Mt from 21 March to 22 July, showing a 14% growth compared with the same period in 2010.

In June 2011 Iran launched two new cement factories in the provinces of West Azerbaijan and Golestan. Khoy cement factory, which cost USD140m, has the capacity to produce more than 1Mt/yr. Galikesh cement factory, which employs some 210 workers and cost about USD165m, has the capacity to produce more than 3,400t/day.

Russia: HeidelbergCement has officially opened its new plant TulaCement in the presence of numerous prestigious guests. The plant, which is located approximately 150km south of Moscow in the city of Novogurovsky, Tula region, has a cement production capacity of 2Mt/yr. Construction of the plant began in April 2009. The investment costs for the new plant, which employs around 400 people amounted to approximately Euro300m.

"We are very pleased that we are today able to inaugurate our state-of-the-art cement plant, TulaCement, which is one of the largest in Russia," explained Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board. "In the future, the new plant will primarily supply the rapidly growing market in Greater Moscow with high-quality cement. We have thus reached another milestone in the expansion of our cement capacities in attractive growth regions and have increased our capacity in Russia to around 5Mt/yr."

The cement will be produced in a dry process in the highly-automated plant, which is equipped with environmentally-friendly technology. The entire production site including the quarry spans over 100 hectares. To ensure optimum logistics for delivery and cement shipments, HeidelbergCement has constructed several kilometres of road and railway lines. Four modern apartment buildings have been erected so that the employees can live on site.

"Russia is an attractive market for HeidelbergCement," added Dr Scheifele. "The demand for cement is rapidly increasing. It is anticipated that cement consumption will rise from 50Mt/yr in 2010 to around 70-90Mt/yr in the next 10 years."

HeidelbergCement has been active in Russia since 2001. Amongst other activities, the Group operates a cement plant near St. Petersburg and is the majority shareholder of a building materials company in Bashkortostan, one of the richest republics in Russia. The cement is imported to important growth regions via import terminals in Murmansk, Archangelsk and Kaliningrad.