Displaying items by tag: Upgrade
Saudi Arabia: China National Building Material (CNBM) subsidiary Sinoma CDI has won a US$6m contract to upgrade cement and raw materials conveyors at Riyadh Cement Company’s Riyadh cement plant. The producer has opted for elevator conveyors for mechanical transportation, in place of its existing pneumatic conveyors. It expects this to increase energy efficiency and reduce necessary maintenance. The project is due for delivery in early 2025.
Riyadh Cement Company CEO Shoeil Al-Ayed said that the project aligns with the producer’s strategic energy reduction initiatives.
UK: Aggregate Industries has successfully removed gas duct sections from the electrostatic precipitation filter at its Cauldon cement plant in Staffordshire. This will make way for the installation of a new CTP Team process kiln bag filter, following an annual shutdown.
Cauldon plant capital expenditure manager Mark Powling said “The new bag filter not only provides the best available technology, but will enable the Cauldon plant to optimise its plant performance, driving its decarbonisation and alternative fuel strategies. Thanks to the project team for their efforts and hard work to date.”
Saudi Arabia: Sinoma Overseas Development has reported the successful construction of the first steel column for the kiln inlet of the new Line 3 at Yamama Cement’s Al Kharj cement plant in Northern Halal. The China-based supplier used a crawler crane to position the structural element, which is painted in its characteristic blue. In a post to LinkedIn, it said that the development ‘kicks off the steel construction and installation’ of the upcoming 12,500t/day (4.6Mt/yr) line.
Sinoma Overseas Development said “Meticulous preparations were made for the successful completion of the first installation as a landmark task in the project’s construction: civil engineers re-measured pre-embedded bolts multiple times, cleared pathways, and set the area ready for operation. Seamless coordination between commanders and operators, combined with whole-process supervision of managers, made the successful installation of the first steel column possible.” Looking forwards, it said “The project team, greatly inspired by the successful installation, will continue to face challenges head-on, chase for high quality while ensuring safety and make sure tasks are completed in due time for the safe and smooth operation of subsequent construction.”
US: Holcim US, in partnership with The Ohio State University and GTI Energy, will install membrane carbon capture technology at its Holly Hill, South Carolina, cement plant. The project is partly funded by a US$7m the US Department of Energy. The partners aim to capture 99% of the plant’s CO₂ emissions.
GTI Energy vice president of carbon management and conversion Don Stevenson said "This project will showcase the power of collaboration and innovation in tackling the complex challenge of transitioning to cleaner energy systems. The development and implementation of cost-effective carbon capture technologies are key to meeting our decarbonisation goals."
Egypt: Arabian Cement Company is replacing electrostatic precipitators at its Ain Sokhna cement plant with bag filters. Arab Finance News has reported that the project will commence in two phases. Arabian Cement Company will first install the filters in Line 1 of the plant, before subsequently installing them in Line 2. Italy-based air pollution control specialist Redecam Group will execute the upgrades.
Iraq: Al-Riyadh Investment Companies Group subsidiary Al-Douh Iraqi Company for Cement Industries plans to expand its Al Douh cement plant’s capacity by 58% to 3Mt/yr. The expansion is part of an upgrade involving the installation of a new kiln, a gas-fired captive power plant and a new waste heat recovery (WHR) plant. The WHR plant will provide 30% of the plant’s energy. The US-based International Finance Corporation (IFC) has loaned Al-Douh Iraqi Company for Cement Industries US$130m on a long-term basis for the project.
The IFC says that it expects the Al Douh cement plant expansion to help boost economic diversification, spur sustainable growth in Iraq and generate 2700 new jobs in Muthanna Governorate.
Ratna Cements commissions upgraded Mudhol cement plant
09 January 2024India: Ratna Cements has inaugurated its Mudhol cement plant in Karnataka after competing modernisation work. Following its previous upgrade in 2016, the plant had an integrated capacity of 365,000t/yr and an additional grinding capacity of 73,000t/yr. The Hindu newspaper has reported that parent company MRN Group marked the occasion of the latest inauguration with an announcement that it plans to build a new 1Mt/yr cement plant adjacent to the existing one in Mudhol.
MRN Group chair Murugesh Nirani noted importance of the group’s work to create jobs for Karnataka.
Holcim Deutschland upgrades Beckum cement plant
09 January 2024Germany: Holcim Deutschland has announced for the ‘most extensive’ modernisation of its Beckum cement plant to date. Local press has reported that the modernisation will commence with the installation of a Euro20m pendulum cooler to replace the plant’s existing tube cooler. The new cooler will reduce the plant’s CO2 emissions and make separated CO2 better suited for capture, according to the producer. The Beckum cement plant is the site of an on-going carbon capture trial.
General manager Jan Kristof Peters said “We want to implement all construction work as quickly as possible and with as little noise pollution as possible for the neighbourhood. As in previous years, we ask for our neighbourhood’s understanding.”
Update on Kyrgyzstan, January 2024
03 January 2024Kyrgyzstan had a couple of prominent stories in the press towards the end of December 2023 with news of a new plant and continuing data showing that cement production has grown.
The Chüy project was first announced by the government in mid-2022 when it signed an investment agreement with a consortium comprising representatives from Terek-Tash and ZENIT. More information on the unit emerged this week when the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund revealed that it made a loan of US$45m towards the scheme based in the northern Chüy region of the country. The plan is to build a 1.7Mt/yr plant with a budget of US$160m. Equipment to build the plant is reportedly being sourced from companies in China and Russia. Special features of the project include a waste heat recovery unit and the use of ash from the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant in the production process. The plant is expected to be launched in 2024.
Graph 1: Cement production in Kyrgyzstan, 2018 - 2023. Source: National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic.
One reason why the government might be keen to build a new plant is because cement production has mostly grown in each of the past five years, with the exception of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began. In 2022 it increased by 7% year-on-year to 2.7Mt and the latest data from the National Statistical Committee indicates that it rose by 11% year-on-year to 2.6Mt in the 11 months to the end of November 2023. If this rate held in December 2023 then it looks likely that the country will have produced just under 3Mt in 2023. At the same time the country’s exports of cement have also been falling. In November 2023 the government of Kazakhstan’s Jambyl Region said that it had found investors to support construction of a railway line between the locale and Kyrgyzstan due to a ‘building boom’ in the latter country.
Earlier in 2023 the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) said it had earmarked US$48m for the modernisation of equipment at the Kant Cement plant, operated by Kazakhstan-based United Cement Group (UCG), also in Chüy region. The plant is the biggest in Kyrgyzstan, running five wet process production lines, according to the Global Cement Directory 2023. The EDB linked its investment to a hydroelectric project in the country that it is also funding, pointing out that such structures require lots of cement and concrete. This follows a previous upgrade project by owner Kazakhstan-based United Cement Group (UCG) at the plant from 2021 to March 2023. This involved efficiency and environmental gains such as installing bag filters and converting a cement grinding mill to a closed circuit. China-based and CNBM subsidiary China Triumph International Engineering was the lead project partner. In early December 2023 UCG announced that it had signed another contract with China Triumph International Engineering over the summer to build a new dry production line at the site with a clinker capacity of 0.8Mt/yr. At the time of the announcement it said that preparation of the construction site had started and that work had begun on installing a pile foundation.
Finally, one more Kyrgyz news story of note in recent months was the announcement in October 2023 that the government had effectively nationalised the Kurmentinsky Cement plant in Issyk-Kul Region. The reason why it had done so was unusual because it said that a 93% share in the company running the plant had been transferred to the State Property Management Agency following the death of its former owner. The former owner was one Kamchybek Kolbaev, an organised crime boss who had been listed on the US Department of State Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program and was reportedly killed by state security services in early October 2023. The remaining shares in the plant have been passed to its workers and the government further said that it intends to upgrade the site.
The cement sector in Kyrgyzstan is modest and in need of modernisation. It appears to be having a resurgence at the moment though with production mounting and at least two major plant projects underway. The country is in a compelling position economically and geopolitically given its membership of the Russia-backed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and its proximity to China. Various projects backed by the latter’s Belt and Road Initiative, both underway and forthcoming, would certainly appear to benefit from more efficient local cement production and higher volumes.
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.