Displaying items by tag: Poland

Poland/US: Holcim has announced two new acquisitions in the area of raw materials and aggregates. In Poland, it has acquired granulated calcium carbonate producer Polcalc. The company employs 78 people. In the US, the group has acquired Utah-baed Utelite. The company produces lightweight aggregates and employs 40 people.

CEO Jan Jenisch said “We are pleased to welcome the employees of Utelite and Polcalc and look forward to their experience and capabilities. These two bolt-on acquisitions strengthen our presence in two important growth markets while contributing to Holcim’s overall strategy to expand our range of low-carbon products and solutions.”

It’s been a good week for carbon capture in cement production with new projects announced in France and Poland.

The first one is a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) collaboration between Vicat and Hynamics, a subsidiary of energy-provider Groupe EDF. The Hynovi project will see an integrated unit for capturing CO₂ and producing methanol installed at Vicat’s Montalieu-Vercieu cement plant in 2025. It aims to capture 40% of the CO₂ from the kiln exhaust stack at the plant by using an oxy-fuel method and installing a 330MW electrolyser to split water into oxygen and hydrogen for different parts of the process. The CO₂ will then be combined with hydrogen to produce methanol with potential markets in transport, chemicals and construction. The setup is planning to manufacture over 0.2Mt/yr of methanol or about a quarter of France’s national requirement. The project was put forward under a call for proposals by the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) program. Pre-notification of its participation in the program has been received from the French government and it is currently being evaluated by the European Commission. Vicat’s decision to choose its Montalieu-Vercieu plant for this project is also interesting since it started using a CO₂ntainer system supplied by UK-based Carbon8 Systems there on an industrial scale in November 2020. This system uses captured CO₂ from the plant’s flue gas emissions to carbonate cement-plant dust and produce aggregate.

The second new project is a pilot carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilot by HeidelbergCement at its Górażdże cement plant in Poland. This project is part of the wider Project ACCSESS, a consortium led by Sintef Energi in Norway that aims to cut carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) costs and to link CO₂-emitters from mainland Europe to storage fields in the North Sea. The cement plant part in Poland will test an enzyme-based capture method using waste heat at the plant. Another part of the project will look at how the captured CO₂ can then be transported to the Northern Lights storage facility in Norway including the regulatory aspects of cross-border CO₂ transport. ACCSESS started in May 2021 and is scheduled to end in April 2025. It has a budget of around Euro18m with Euro15m contributed by the European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 fund.

HeidelbergCement also says that the second stage of its LEILAC (Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement) project at the Hannover cement plant is part of ACCSESS, with both testing of the larger-scale Calix technology to capture CO₂ and the connected transport logistics and bureaucracy to actually get it to below the North Sea. That last point about Calix is timely given that US-based Carbon Direct purchased a 7% stake in Calix in mid-September 2021 for around US$18m. Whilst on the topic of carbon capture and HeidelbergCement don’t forget that the group’s first full-scale carbon capture unit at Norcem’s Brevik cement plant, using Aker Solution’s amine solvent capture technology, is scheduled for commissioning in September 2024. Another carbon capture unit is planned for Cementa’s Slite plant in 2030 but the proposed capture method has not been announced.

Other recent developments in carbon capture at cement plants include Aalborg Portland Cement’s plan to capture and store CO₂ as part of the Project Greensand consortium. The overall plan here is to explore the technical and commercial feasibility of sequestering CO₂ in depleted oil and gas reservoirs in the Danish North Sea, starting with the Nini West Field. The project is still securing funding though, with an Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program application to the Danish government pending. However, the Danish Parliament decided in December 2021 to set aside a special funding pool to support a CO₂ storage pilot project so this initiative seems to be making progress. If the application is successful, the consortium wants to start work by the end 2021 and then proceed with an offshore injection pilot from late 2022. How and when Aalborg Portland Cement fits in is mostly unknown but a 0.45Mt/yr capture unit at its Rørdal cement plant is tentatively planned for 2027. There’s also no information on the capture method although Aker Carbon Capture is also part of the Project Greensand consortium. Finally, also in September 2021, Chart Industries subsidiary Sustainable Energy Solutions announced that it had selected FLSmidth to help adapt and commercialise its Cryogenic Carbon Capture carbon capture and storage (CCS) system for the global cement industry.

All of this tells the cynics in the audience that a large international climate change meeting is coming up very soon. Most cement companies will likely want some good news to show off when the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) dominates the media agenda in November 2021. Other observations to point out include that none of the projects above are full-scale industrial carbon capture installations, most of them are consortiums of one sort of another and that they are all subsidised or want to be. While hydrogen and CO₂ networks get built this seems inevitable. Yet, we’re not at the stage where cement companies just order carbon capture units from a supplier, like they might a new clinker cooler or silo, without the need for long lists of partners. When this changes then carbon capture looks set to flourish.

On a final note, the UK is currently experiencing a shortage of commercially-used CO₂. The reasons for this have nothing to do with the cement industry. Yet consider the constant doom-and-gloom about record global CO₂ emissions and the sheer amount of effort going into reducing this by the projects mentioned above and others. Life has a sense of humour at times.

For a view on the CO₂ sequestration permitting process in the US look out for the an article by Ralph E Davis Associates, in the forthcoming October 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Poland: Lafarge Poland has laid the foundation stone for the Euro100m new kiln line at its Małogoszcz cement plant. The replacement of the three existing kilns and installation of an alternative fuel (AF) line aims to reduce the plant’s CO₂ emissions by 20% and its energy consumption by 33%. The company, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim, aims to make the cement plant into one of the European Union’s most modern. China National Building Material (CNBM) subsidiary Nanjing Kisen International Engineering will carry out the work, which is scheduled for completion in early 2023.

Project director Krzysztof Byczyński said “One of the three kilns has already been demolished and in its place a new kiln will be built with the necessary installations. Preparatory works for the construction of a new kiln are currently underway.”

Poland: Germany-based HeidelbergCement has partnered with Norway-based Sintef Energi install a pilot carbon capture and storage (CCS) system at its Górazdze cement plant. The company will deploy new enzyme-based CCS technology, which it says allows greater use of the waste heat and simplifies the control of secondary emissions. The project, known as Project ACCSess, has received Euro15m-worth of funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 industrial emissions reduction programme. 18 industry partners and research organisations will collaborate towards the deployment of the technology at the plant. The consortium will store captured CO₂ in storage fields in the Nordic countries. The project is due to conclude in April 2025. The total cost of the work is Euro18m.

HeidelbergCement chair Dominik von Achten said “The tests of an enzyme-based capture unit at our Górazdze plant in Poland will deliver important insights into how we can further reduce costs in the capture process.” He added “At the same time, it will emphasise our strategy to expand CCS further into our Eastern Europe-based assets.”

Italy: Buzzi Unicem’s net sales grew by 5.8% year-on-year to Euro1.61bn in the first half of 2021 from Euro1.52bn in the same period of 2020. Its sales volumes of cement and clinker rose by 10.9% to 14.8Mt from 13.4Mt. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 12.3% to Euro352m from Euro314m. The group reported cement sales volumes growth in all territories with the exception of Poland, and Germany to a lesser extent. It also noted growth in ready-mixed concrete sales volumes of 7% to 5.8Mm3 with development in Italy, Poland and Ukraine more than compensating for ‘unfavourable’ changes in the US, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Poland: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge Polska has launched Aggneo, a recycled aggregate recycled from demolition-sourced concrete. The producer says that Aggneo offers high consistency and a lower density than mined aggregates, resulting in material savings. Besides reducing waste, the product also lowers the carbon footprint of delivery by 66%, according to the company. The building materials producer aims to manufacture 1Mt/yr of recycled aggregated by 2030.

Poland: HeildelbergCement subsidiary Górażdże Group plans to vaccinate 700 of its employees against Covid-19. A first dose will be administered in mid-May 2021 followed by a second in June 2021. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be used and administered on company sites. The corporate health campaign will be conducted as part of the country’s National Immunisation Program.

Poland: The Polish Cement Association (SPC) has forecast a 2% year-on-year drop in cement sales to 18.5Mt in 2021. President Krzysztof Kieres attributed the fall to growing imports and reduced construction due to a cold start to the year. He predicts that sales will rise again, by 4% to 19.3Mt, in 2022.

The SPC has warned that the industry faces large costs in meeting the European Green Deal’s required 40% CO₂ emissions reduction by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. In particular, the local industry noted that the rising European Union (EU) CO₂ price has caused a direct increase in electricity prices. It has called on the government and the EU to compensate it for this rise.

Imports of cement also present a key challenge. In 2020, imports of Belarusian cement increased by 80% to 440,000t and imports of Ukrainian cement increased by 50% to 32,000t. The association expressed strong support for the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as a means of protecting the industry against imports both from neighbouring countries outside the EU and via polluting shipping from cement exporters further afield such as Turkey.

Poland: Italy-based Bedeschi has won a contract with China-based Nanjing Kisen International Engineering, part of China National Building Materials, to carry out equipment supply for the modernisation of crushing and storage facilities at a Lafarge Polska cement plant in Poland. The supplier says that it will provide a crushing system featuring two RI 450/15000 double rollers and two Pal SP 130/18 portal reclaimers for raw materials storage.

Poland: Lafarge Poland, part of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim, has begun the demolition of part of its 2.0Mt/yr Małogoszcz cement plant in Świętokrzyskie voivodeship. The work proceeded with the company taking down one of the plant’s 120m-high chimneys.

Industrial director Stanislaw Sobczyk said that the new Małogoszcz cement plant would “rise like a Phoenix from the ashes” of the old. The plant’s two chimneys were a local landmark and appeared on the logo of the former Małogoszcz Cement Company.