Displaying items by tag: US

US: Rexa has appointed Geoff Hynes as its president and chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds Sam Lalos. Hynes has worked for Rexa for his entire career in a variety of roles, including Factory Assembly, Direct and Regional Sales, Aftermarket Manager, International Sales Manager and Director of Sales.

Other appointments include Robert Sass’ promotion to Director of Customer Support. Michael Murphy has become the Director of Sales and Marketing and Nicholas Lalos has been appointed as a Marketing Manager.

Rexa manufactures actuators and drives for a variety of industries including the mining and power generation sectors.

US: Vortex has appointed Lyndon Flower as a Business Development Manager for its USA & Canada division. His focus will be on working with manufacturers’ representatives, regional and territory sales managers, and industry specialists to further expand the sales of Vortex products in the dry bulk material handling industry. Previously, Flower served as vice president and general manager at A&J Mixing International for 18 years until the company was acquired by Smico in 2015. Since then, he has been focused on sales and marketing efforts for the A&J Mixing line.

US: Lehigh Cement has made three appointments to the management of its Mitchell cement plant at Allentown in Pennsylvania.

Quentin McGahey, former plant manager at the Mitchell cement plant, has been appointed as Vice President, Cement Operations Northeast, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. McGahey joined Lehigh Cement Company in 2016 and has more than 22 years of experience in mining and cement manufacturing. McGahey also served as an army officer before beginning his civilian career.

Jerry Miller, former assistant plant manager at the Mitchell plant, is now plant manager at the unit. Miller joined the company in 1980 and has more than 37 years of cement production and management experience at the company’s facilities in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Iowa.

Cody Hall, former safety manager at the Mitchell plant, is now assistant plant manager. Hall joined Lehigh Cement Company in 1995 and has more than 21 years of cement industry and management experience.

US: Summit Materials has appointed Karl H Watson Jr as its chief operating officer and executive vice president. He suceeds Douglas C Rauh.

Watson holds over 25 years of experience in the construction materials industry. In 2017, he served as President, Cement & Southwest Ready Mix at Martin Marietta Materials. Prior to joining Martin Marietta, Watson served in various leadership positions at Cemex, including President, Cemex USA. Prior to Cemex's acquisition of Rinker Group, Watson held various executive positions at Rinker in both the US and Australia.

Watson is currently on the board of directors of the Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association and on the executive committee of the Portland Cement Association where he served as the vice chairman from 2013 to 2015. He is a past chairman of the National Ready Mix Concrete Association and the Florida Concrete and Products Association and was on the board of directors of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association from 2007 to 2011. Watson has a Bachelor's of Science degree in Business Administration from Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Just before the Christmas break one of the Global Cement editorial staff noticed how many solar projects have been popping up in the industry news of late. Looking at stories on the Global Cement website tagged with ‘solar’ five occurred in a six month period of 2017 out of a total of 13 since 2014. It’s not a rigorous study by any means but projects in the US, South Korea, India, Namibia and Jordan all suggest a trend.

All these new projects appear to be providing a supplementary energy source from photovoltaic (PV) solar plants that will be used to supply a portion of a cement plant’s electrical power requirements at a subsidised cost. Typically, these initiatives are preparing to supply 20 - 30% of a plant’s electricity over a couple of decades. These schemes are often supported by government subsidies to encourage decarbonised energy sources and a general trend in societies for so-called ‘greener’ energy sources in the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change.

Global Cement is familiar with this model of solar power in the cement industry from its use at the HeidelbergCement Hanson plant at Ketton in the UK. The project was realised by Armstrong Energy through local supplier Lark Energy and it provides around 13% of the cement plant’s electrical energy needs. Originally the array started off by supplying 10MW but this was later increased to 13MW in 2015. A key feature is that as part of the agreement with Armstrong Energy, Hanson receives 35% of the solar power generated for free and buys the remaining 65% at a fixed rate. Even at this rate the plant expects to save around Euro11m in energy costs over the lifetime of the solar array. In addition it will save 3500t/yr of CO2.

Most of the new solar projects announced in 2017 are of a similar scale and ambition to what Hanson Cement has done at Ketton. However, JSW Group’s plans are a magnitude larger. The Indian cement producer wants to build a 200MW solar plant next to its cement grinding plant at Salboni in West Bengal for US$124m. However, it has hedged its bets somewhat by saying that it might build a 36MW thermal power plant instead if its proposal fails.

LafargeHolcim and Italcementi have also experimented with concentrated solar power (CSP) plants for the cement industry. In 2007 LafargeHolcim and the Solar Technology Laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich started researching using high-temperature solar heat to upgrade low-grade carbonaceous feedstock to produce synthetic gas. The intention was to use the synthetic gas as a substitute for coal and petcoke in kilns.

Italcementi’s project at the Aït Baha plant in Morocco uses a CSP process that can be used with the plant’s waste heat recovery unit. Its moveable trough-style solar collectors follow the sun throughout the day to warm up a heat-transfer fluid during the day and store the heat in gravel beds overnight. In this way the CSP process allows for continuous operation over 24 hours. Before Italcementi’s acquisition by HeidelbergCement in 2016 the company had long-term ambitions to roll-out its CSP process across plants in the Middle East and North African region.

New battery technology of the kind backing the growing electric car industry may be further pushing the cement industry’s preference to PV over CSP power. The other renewable energy source slowly being built to support cement plants has been wind. Like PV it too suffers from cyclical disruptions to its power. Technological entrepreneur Elon Musk (of Tesla car fame) notably supplied the world's largest lithium-ion battery to Southern Australia to support one of its wind farms in late 2017. Around the same time local cement producer Adelaide Bighton announced in a separate deal that it had struck a deal to use wind power to part-power some of its facilities in the same region. At present it doesn’t look like solar power will be completely powering cement plants in the near future but perhaps a renewable fuels rate along similar lines to an alternative fuels rate might be a growing trend to watch.

The Global Cement CemPower conference on electrical power, including waste heat recovery, captive power, grinding optimisation and electrical energy efficiency, will return in January 2019.

US: Kent Webber has started his new role as president for Monarch Cement. He was appointed to the role in December 2017 following the resignation of Walter H Wulf, according to the Wichita Business Journal. Webber has worked for Monarch Cement since 2013, first as its subsidiary operations manager and then its executive vice president. Wulf will continue in his role as chairman of the board and as a director.

US: Ametek Brookfield has appointed Joseph Plante as Division Vice President and Business Unit Manager. He will have responsibility for managing the day-to-day operations while continuing to promote growth, customer satisfaction and innovation at Ametek Brookfield.

Plante holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from UMass Amherst, a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Business Administration from Babson College. Most recently, he was president of Diba Industries, a subsidiary of Halma.

Ametek Brookfield manufactures tools for viscosity measurement and control of liquids and semi-solids.

US: HeidelbergCement expects its profit to be negatively effected in 2017 following reforms to the US tax system. Following a change in the rules from 22 December 2017 the federal corporate tax rate has been reduced from 35% to 21% from the start of 2018. In addition, the regulations regarding the utilization of loss carryforwards were changed. This has affected deferred tax assets on losses and interest carried-forwards that are expected to reduce the group’s balance sheet by Euro200m in its annual report.

However, the company still expects a ‘significant’ increase of 2017 group share of profit before one-time effects. In addition in 2019 the major reduction of the effective tax rate in the US is anticipated to have a positive effect on group net profit and cashflow.

US: Bud Biggs, the long-term plant manager of the Mitsubishi Cement plant in Lucerne Valley, California, died at the age of 77 on 18 November 2017. It is thought that he suffered a heart attack. Biggs, who only retired in February 2017, had been manager of the plant since 1986.

Bud Biggs began his career at Kaiser Cement in Cupertino, California in 1962, first working in quality control and in concrete research. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1980 while working for the company. After a period working in Texas, he returned to California in 1986 to work at Kaiser Cement’s Lucerne Valley plant. Initially working as production manager, he was promoted to plant manager shortly afterwards, retaining his role when Mitsubishi Cement acquired Kaiser Cement.

Over the years Biggs made great contributions to the local community. In 2005 he and Mitsubishi Cement’s Senior Vice President Mike Jasberg formed the Mitsubishi Cement Corporation Educational Foundation (MCCEF), which provides additional funding for local schools and scholarships for students. Biggs was also on the boards of several other local educational and professional institutes.

US: Refractory manufacturer HarbisonWalker International (HWI) has announced two new members of its senior leadership team. Ross Wilkin has joined as chief financial officer (CFO) and corporate treasurer, and Michael Werner has joined as senior vice president, Commercial and corporate officer.

Wilkin joins HWI from Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, where he served as CFO. Before his role at Universal Stainless, he was CFO at Dynamics. Much of Wilkin’s career has been spent with HJ Heinz Company where he eventually became the became the vice president and CFO for the company’s Australia and New Zealand organisation. He began his finance career at KPMG, serving both in Toronto, Canada and in Cleveland, Ohio. A graduate of Carlton University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting and Finance, Wilkin is a certified public accountant in both Canada and the US.

Werner previously led global commercial operations for Loparex. Prior to this he spent 20 years at GE Plastics and Sabic in numerous domestic and global roles, where he progressed to become Product General Manager. He began his career at Monsanto as an engineer in Technical Development and as a manager of Business Development in the thermoplastic elastomer business. Werner holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Polymer Science from the Pennsylvania State University.