Displaying items by tag: Sweden

Sweden: Heidelberg Materials Sweden has called for swifter action to be taken by the government on a planned upgrade to the mains electricity supply to the island of Gotland. The building materials company is planning to build a full-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) unit at its integrated Slite cement plant on the island by 2030. However, the newly approved plans to build two new electrical transmission cables to Gotland are currently scheduled for completion in 2031. The cement plant is expected to require annual electricity requirements of up to 1.5TWh with a power requirement of up to 250MW when the CCS unit is completed.

The cement producer has welcomed the government’s upgrade plans so far but has impressed the urgency of its timeline to build a CCS unit at the Slite plant. It says it is currently considering investing around Euro850m on the project. If completed the CCS unit is expected to capture up to 1.8Mt/yr of CO₂. The company said that this corresponds to approximately 3% of Sweden's emissions annually.

US: Swede-based Bruks Siwertell has received a conveyor system order for use at the integrated Capitol Aggregates cement plant in San Antonio, Texas. The order has been placed by Borton, a construction company.
Three new conveyor systems will modify the site’s existing material transport system and the addition of a new storage silos. They are all standard widths of 91cm. The C-810 type conveyor will be 148m in length and will transfer clinker to a bucket elevator at a rated capacity of 150t/hr. The 84m long C-940 type conveyor will have a rated capacity of 200t/hr and will transfer clinker to the silo reclaim, while the C-975 type conveyor will be 40m long and connect to an existing conveyor. It will also have a rated capacity of 200t/hr.

The conveyors are being fabricated in Mexico and will be delivered to the operator later in 2023.

US: Kosmos Cement has ordered a mobile ship unloader from Sweden-based Bruks Siwertell for use at its terminal in Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The product is designed to discharge vessels up to 5000dwt and has a continuous rated cement handling capacity of 300t/hr. Delivery is planned for the spring of 2023.

US: Cemex has ordered a type 10 000 S mobile ship unloader from Sweden-based Bruks Siwertell for use at Belle Chasse in Louisiana. The ship unloader was delivered towards the end of 2022, has a continuous rated cement handling capacity of 300t/hr and can discharge vessels up to 10,000dwt.

Sweden: Cementa is running trials on a pilot water treatment plant in the File Hajdar limestone quarry near its Slite cement plant in Gotland. The pilot plant has been running since September 2022 and the subsidiary of Germany-based Heidelberg materials describes the first results as ‘promising.’ The cement company plans to build and pay for a full-scale water treatment plant at the site. Engineering and design company AFRY has been collaborating with Cementa on the project.

Matilda Hoffstedt, the manager of the Slite cement plant, said “We can contribute to greatly strengthening the public water supply here in northern Gotland. The results from the pilot project are extremely promising and we see that a new water plant would really make a difference to the water supply throughout the year.”

Cementa started work on the water project in 2021 with a feasibility study and plans for the pilot. The entire feasibility study is expected to be completed in the summer of 2023 and the goal is to be able to put a full-scale water plant into operation in 2027. However, Cementa says that it needs a long-term permit for its mining operations in Gotland in order to invest in the project. The cement producer has faced opposition to renewing its permit at the site since 2021. A perceived threat to the area’s drinking water supplies has been a repeated concern made by groups against continued quarrying in the area.

US: Argos USA has ordered a 490 M-type ship unloader from Swden-based Bruks Siwertell for cement and fly-ash handling at the Port of Houston in Texas. The unloader will have a continuous rated cement handling capacity of 800t/hr and is designed to accommodate vessels up to 65,000 dwt. It will be assembled on site and is planned for delivery in February 2024. Bruks Siwertell will also supply the complete screw conveyor system for transporting dry bulk material from the unloader to a storage dome, along with support structures and walkways.

Australia: Bruks Siwertell has received an order from Hallet Capital for an enclosed ship unloader for Port Adelaide. A gantry-mounted Siwertell 490 F-type unit has been ordered along with a jetty screw-conveyor system feeding a dome silo and individual screw conveyors for installation inside the dome. The unloader will be suitable for discharging bulkers up to 40,000dwt at a rated cement handling capacity of 500t/hr. It is planned for delivery in August 2023 and will be assembled on site.

Hallett Group announced plans in mid-2022 to build a slag cement grinding plant in Port Augusta, South Australia. The project will also include a new distribution facility at Port Adelaide.

Sweden: The Land and Environmental Court has granted Cementa a four-year permit to continue mining operations in Slite on Gotland. The latest temporary permit was set to expire at the end of 2022. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) and the county administrative board of Gotland recommended rejecting Cementa’s application earlier in 2022. Prior to this the central government extended the cement company’s mining licence by one year from late 2021.

The subsidiary of Germany-based Heidelberg Materials said that it viewed the latest four-year permit as a ‘bridge’ until it is able to secure a long-term permit. It is aiming to submit an application for a 30-year permit in 2023.

Sweden: Germany-based KIMA Process Control has secured a contract for the supply of a kiln shell cooling system for Cementa's Slite cement plant in Gotland. 88 water jets will deliver centimetre-precision cooling for the 55m-long kiln, while IR pyrometers measure temperatures over areas of 10cm². According to KIMA Process Control, the equipment can avoid unnecessary cooling of the kiln shell, conserving the heat energy supplied by the main burner.

The new cooling system will eliminate the use of energy intensive electric fans, slashing 1700t/yr in CO₂ emissions, according to the supplier. It said that noise emissions will also 'drastically' decline as a result of the upgrade. The system's operating costs are reportedly 98% less than those of the plant's existing fan system.

The supplier said that the new equipment will 'bring the cement plant in Slite an economic benefit in the shortest possible time.' It said "For the cement industry, this project represents a new milestone in terms of best available technology in the operation of rotary kilns."

Europe: The Carbon Negative Biofuels from Organic Waste (Carbiow) project has received EU funding under the Horizon Europe initiative. Carbiow seeks to develop a dense, dry homogenous marine and aviation biofuel by carbonising gasification ash with oxygen and captured CO₂ from cement plants. 12 consortium members from the Benelux, Germany, Nordic countries, Slovenia and Spain are participating in the project.