Displaying items by tag: Spain

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas' Alcalá de Guadaíra plant has secured environmental clearance to use more alternative raw materials and alternative fuels (AF) in its cement production.

The company said "This achievement is a further boost to our sustainable work practices, respecting the environment and contributing to combatting climate change."

Spain: Cementos La Cruz plans to build a new unit to produce reduced-CO₂ cement at its 1.5Mt/yr Abanilla grinding plant in Murcia. In a video posted on YouTube, the producer said that the new unit will produce cement using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) derived from industrial waste streams. Additionally, it will source 100% of its electricity consumption from biofuel-fired generators. Cementos La Cruz has secured Euro4.5m in European Union funding for the project.

General director Juan Luis Porrúa said that cement from the upcoming unit will have a specific carbon footprint below 200kg/t, and will eliminate over 400,000t of CO₂ emissions from Spanish construction in its first 10 years of operation.

Spain: Cemex España has announced its participation in the HYIELD consortium, which plans to build a waste-to-hydrogen demonstration plant at the producer’s Alcanar cement plant in Catalonia. The demonstration plant will process a total of 2000t of biogenic waste to produce 400t of green hydrogen for use as fuel, fertiliser and for other applications. The trial commands Euro10m in funding from the EU’s research and innovation funding programme Horizon Europe. Parent company Cemex believes that the technology being demonstrated at Alcanar has the potential to process 300Mt/yr of waste across Europe and produce 30Mt/yr of hydrogen.

Cemex’s Europe, Middle East and Africa regional president Sergio Menendez said “As part of its drive towards reaching net zero by 2050, Cemex is committed to partnering with like-minded organisations to explore the very latest innovations in more sustainable technology that can support the cement production process. We are proud to provide one of our cement plants in Spain as the location for the HYIELD trial and excited to see the outcomes from this research and development project.”

Spain: Holcim España has committed to reaching 50% reduced-CO₂ cement production at its Sagunto cement plant in Valencia. The cement comes under its ECOPlanet range, which offers emissions reductions of up to 30%. General manager Lucas García said that the company relies on supplementary cementitious materials, including recycled raw materials, and alternative fuels in producing the cement.

The El Mercantil Valenciano newspaper has reported that the Sagunto plant’s environmental manager, Carmen Orts, said that its application of 29 different best available techniques ‘ensures the protection of the environment with a holistic vision.’

Europe: Mexico-based Cemex says that it will soon have obtained Type III environmental product declaration (EPD) certificates for the cement products it produces across its European network of cement plants. EPDs have been published for selected cements since 2021. Cemex has confirmed the publication of EPDs for all cement types in Poland and the publication of EPDs for its products produced in Croatia and Spain by the end of 2023. Phase Two of the publication process will see EPDs for cements produced in the UK, Germany and Czech Republic in early 2024, which will complete the full roll out in Europe.

Sergio Menéndez, President of Cemex Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia, said, "EPD certificates enable our customers to make an informed choice about which materials offer the lowest carbon footprint and reduce the environmental impact of their construction projects. We have therefore made securing these objective and reliable documents, which demonstrate that our products meet the requirements of more sustainable construction, a priority across our whole European operation. I am very pleased with the progress made so far and look forward to celebrating the completion of this process."

Spain: The Supreme Court of Spain ruled in favour of tax authorities in their pursuit of Cemex España for its accounting of reported losses in the 2006 – 2009 financial years on 21 November 2023. The authorities imposed a Euro456m fine on the company following an audit in July 2011.

Mexico-based Cemex said that is has ‘sources of liquidity’ available to pay the fine, which it now anticipates that it will do before the end of June 2024.

Cemex ‘categorically’ disagrees with the imposition of the penalty. The group maintains that the losses Cemex España declared were not used and since 2012 have not been accounted for in its financial statements.

Spain: Cementos Molins has renewed a Euro75m loan and Euro225m credit line with lenders. The renewal extends the company’s financing buffer until the end of 2028. Expansión News has reported that Cementos Molins plans to use the total Euro300m renewed financing towards advancing its investments in sustainability, and possibly for other corporate purposes.

Spain: Cementos Molins reported sales worth Euro1.08bn during the first nine months of 2023, up by 13% year-on-year from those recorded in the corresponding period of 2022. Meanwhile, the company’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 33%, to Euro278m. Its net profit grew by 38% to Euro124m. The producer succeeded in reducing its debt by 76% to Euro34m, compared to Euro1.42bn at the beginning of the year.

Cementos Molins chief executive officer Julio Rodríguez said "Despite the increasing challenges in the global environment, the results for the first nine months of 2023 showcase the strength of our integrated business model, which comprises products and solutions. We are also making significant progress in implementing our sustainability strategy. I extend my personal gratitude to our dedicated and committed team of more than 6200 employees, whose efforts have enabled our growth across our diverse business segments and in most geographical regions.”

Spain: Switzerland-based Holcim has concluded a deal to acquire Élite Cementos from Grupo Simetría and other shareholders. Élite Cementos operates a grinding plant at the Port of Castellón in Castellón de la Plana, Valencia. Holcim said that its acquisition of the business will unite the latter’s local brand recognition with its own experience and vision of sustainable growth.

The group said “With this agreement, Holcim expands its geographical presence, responding to the increasingly demanding and specialised needs of the sector. The Élite Cementos team joins the Holcim family to continue together an era of growth and transformation of the construction sector.”

Cementos Molins has been celebrating the first anniversary this week of its alternative raw materials unit at its Sant Vicenç dels Horts plant near Barcelona. It has processed 75,000t of waste since September 2022 when the site started up. More is yet to come as the unit has a production capacity of up to 200,000t/yr. The facility receives waste in coarse, granular, powder and sludge formats. Waste from concrete plants is crushed and screened to produce recycled aggregate. Industrial and construction waste is dosed and homogenised to produce alternative raw materials for cement production.

Global Cement Weekly has covered construction and demolition waste (CDW) a couple of times already so far in 2023. A number of cement producers are investing in the sector - including Holcim, Heidelberg Materials, CRH, Cemex – by developing technology, buying up other companies, setting up internal CDW divisions and so on. Holcim and Heidelberg Materials have been the more obviously active participants over the past six months based on media coverage. In September 2023 Holcim France commissioned the Saint-Laurent-de-Mûre alternative raw materials plant and Holcim Group invested in Neustark, a company promoting technology to sequester CO₂ in CDW. In August 2023 Lafarge Canada also completed the first stage of a pilot project to use CDW in cement production at its St. Constant plant in Quebec. Heidelberg Materials meanwhile announced in October 2023 that a forthcoming upgrade to its Górażdże cement plant in Poland would include a new CDW recycling unit and in September 2023 it launched a CDW division for its subsidiary Hanson UK.

Previously we have described how the European Union (EU) has set recovery targets for CDW. However, McKinsey & Company published research in March 2023 setting out the economic case for cement and concrete companies looking at CDW. It estimated that “an increased adoption of circular technologies could be linked to the emergence of new financial net-value pools worth up to roughly Euro110bn by 2050.” It is not a certainty and there is risk involved, but adopting circular practices is one way to reduce this risk. It then went on to predict that recirculating materials and minerals could generate nearly Euro80bn/yr in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the cement and concrete sectors by 2050. The biggest portion of this could come from using CDW in various ways such as a clinker replacement or as an aggregate in concrete production, or the use of unhydrated cement ‘fines.’ Capturing and using CO₂ and increasing alternative fuels (AF) substitution rates would have a financial impact but not to the same scale.

Graph 1: CO₂ abatement cost via circular technologies for cement and concrete sectors. Source: McKinsey & Company.

Graph 1 above puts all of the McKinsey circular technology suggestions in one place with the prediction that all of these methods could reduce CO₂ emissions from cement and concrete production by 80% in 2050 based on an estimated demand of 4Bnt/yr. The first main point they made was that technologies using CO₂, such as curing ready-mix or precast concrete, can create positive economic value at carbon prices of approximately Euro80/t of CO₂. Readers should note that the EU emissions Trading Scheme CO₂ price has generally been above Euro80t/yr since the start of 2022. The second point to note is that using CDW could potentially save money by offering CO₂ abatement at a negative cost through avoiding landfill gate fees and reducing the amount of raw materials required. This is dependent though on government regulation on CO₂ prices, landfill costs and so on.

Cement producers have been clearly aware of the potential of CDW for a while now, based on the actions described above and elsewhere, and they are jockeying for advantage. These companies are familiar with the economic rationale for AF and secondary cementitious materials (SCM) in different countries and locations. CDW usage is similar but with, in McKinsey’s view, existing CO₂ prices, landfill costs, and regulatory frameworks all playing a part in the calculations. Graph 1 is a prediction but it is also another way of showing the path of least resistance to decarbonisation. It is cheaper to start with AF, SCMs and CDW rather than barrelling straight into carbon capture. The beauty here is that cement and concrete sold, say, 50 years ago is now heading back to the producers in the form of CDW and it still has value.