Displaying items by tag: Project

Europe: Australia-based Calix has announced that construction will begin on its second low emissions intensity lime and cement (Leilac) carbon capture and storage (CCS) installation at a ‘European cement plant’ on 7 April 2020. ASX ComNews has reported that collaborators on the project, which has received Euro16m under the EU’s Horizon 2020 grant scheme, are Portugal-based Cimpor, Germany-based HeidelbergCement, Germany and France-based energy companies Ingenieurbüro-Kühlerbau-Neustadt (IKN) and Engie and Belgium-based minerals and lime company Lhoist. Calix has said that the 100,000t/yr process emissions capture facility will be operational in late 2024.
The company has appointed Emma Bowring Leilac-2 project leader.

The first Leilac installation was completed at HeidelbergCement’s 1.5Mt/yr integrated Lixhe plant in Belgium’s Limburg province in mid-2019.

Germany: Currax and Siemens have announced their collaboration on a mill operations digitisation pilot project involving the Simotics Connect 400 motor data collector and transmitter. They hope that analysis of data processed via the Simotics 400 will better enable the remote operating of mills ‘to increase efficiency and component life’ and speeding the shift towards automation and production that is resilient to crises such as the coronavirus outbreak.

India: Cement Corporation of India has signed a memorandum of understanding with power supplier NHPC Limited in order to ‘address the cement requirement’ for the Dibang Multipurpose Project in Lower Dibang Valley district, Arunachal Pradesh. The project is aimed at the construction of a 2880MW hydroelectric power plant and gravity dam for flood control in the Dibang Valley.

India: JSW Cement is planning to expand the cement capacity of its plant in Bilakalagudur, Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh from 4.8Mt/yr to 6.0Mt/yr, at a cost of approximately US$59m. The project will involve expansion of clinker capacity from 2.5Mt/yr to 3.4Mt/yr and the construction of an 18MW captive coal-fired power plant. The work on the project is expected to commence by September 2020.

Vietnam: Maintaining exports will be critical for the Vietnamese cement industry amid rising production output and anticipated sluggish domestic sales in 2020, according to Nguyễn Quang Cung, President of the Vietnam Cement Association (VCA).

Cung also reported that two new cement plants will go into operation during 2020: a 2.5Mt/yr plant in Tân Thắng Commune in the central province of Nghệ, and a 4.6Mt/yr plant in Bỉm Sơn Commune, Thanh Hóa. These new facilities will give the domestic cement industry a total production capacity of more than 100Mt/yr, with local demand estimated to be closer to 70Mt/yr. “Maintaining exports will be critical for the cement industry this year,” said Cung, but domestic projects are likely to remain ‘sluggish’ due to stagnant infrastructure projects.

Over the medium term, Cung said that cement exports would fall to 25Mt in 2021 form 34Mt in 2020, based on an expectation that domestic sales will increase.

Georgia: Germany-based engineering, management and consultancy firm Sustained Visions has announced its appointment by German Cement Georgia for provision of concept development and project management services at its upcoming Kaspi plant. German Cement Georgia plans to commission the plant in early 2020.

Pakistan: The end of 2019 has seen a flurry of 13 proposals for the construction of new plants and one proposed upgrade submitted to different government departments across Pakistan’s five Punjabi districts. The Balochistan Times has reported that Punjab Minister for Trade and Industries Mian Aslam Iqbal stressed the need for cement companies to provide plans for minimal water use in order to receive clearance.

Liberia: The management of Star Cement has welcomed government approval from the Government of Liberia that will allow it to build a cement grinding plant in Monrovia. The special investment incentive was signed into law by President George Manneh Weah in a move stated to be consistent with his promise of giving ‘power to the people.’

The US$41m facility will have the capacity to produce 0.6Mt/yr of cement. Star Cement’s management is optimistic that it will create employment opportunities, both directly at the plant and via the wider construction and distribution sectors. It is also expected that the new capacity will cause a reduction in cement prices, to the benefit of Liberians, particularly those building their own houses.

Meanwhile, the company is aggressively making efforts to ensure that Liberia benefits from the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) by commencing cement exports. This will help the country to earn US Dollars.

Star Cement expects to begin production within the second half of 2020, at which point it will share shares to Liberians who wish to invest in the cement sector.

Belgium: Australia’s Calix says the Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC) consortium has successfully demonstrated CO₂ separation with more than 95% purity at its pilot unit at HeidelbergCement’s cement plant in Lixhe. Technology provider Calix said that preliminary test runs have been completed on the pilot. The technology concept has been shown to work on both lime and cement meal, with calcination near to target levels and high purity CO₂ successfully separated at the top of the reactor although not yet at full design capacity.

It added that it was still working on fixing commissioning issues. Testing will run until the end of 2020 to assess the risk of potential longer-term issues such as tube health and process robustness. In parallel, planning has commenced on the next scale-up of the technology, including conceptual design and engaging funding consortia.

Canada: Lafarge Canada has launched the first phase of its CO₂MENT project. The objective is to build a full-cycle solution to capture and reuse CO₂ from a cement plant. The project is a partnership between Lafarge Canada, Inventys and Total.

“LafargeHolcim is committed to reducing CO₂ emissions and we are excited to join forces with Inventys and Total through Project CO₂MENT. We hope to discover ways to capture emissions from our production processes and reuse them in our products, advancing a circular economy even further than today. The recent launch of the new lower carbon fuel (LCF) system at our Richmond plant aims to make the facility the most carbon efficient cement plant in Canada,” said René Thibault, Region Head North America for LafargeHolcim.

Over the next four years, Project CO₂MENT will demonstrate and evaluate Inventys’ CO₂ Capture System and a selection of LafargeHolcim’s carbon utilization technologies at its Richmond cement plant in British Columbia. The project has three phases and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2020. Subject to the pilot’s success, the vision is to scale up the project and explore how the facility can be replicated across other LafargeHolcim plants.

During the first phase the partners will work on purifying the cement flue gas in preparation for CO₂ capture. The second phase will focus on the separation of CO₂ from flue gas using a customised for cement version of Inventys’ carbon capture technology at pilot scale. As part of the final phase, the captured CO₂ will be prepared for reuse and support the economical assessment and demonstration of CO₂ conversion technologies onsite, such as CO₂ injected concrete and fly ash.