Displaying items by tag: Waste Heat Recovery

India: UltraTech Cement has cuts its capital expenditure budget to around US$130m due to the coronavirus pandemic. Work on its 2.2Mt/yr Cuttack grinding unit, which was scheduled for commissioning in March 2021, has been slowed down. Upgrades at its West Bengal and Bihar grinding plants are nearly completed and a waste heat recovery system (WHRS) at its UltraTech Nathdwara Cement subsidiary will be completed in the current financial year.

The leading Indian cement producer said that government directives in response to the health crisis had ‘adversely’ affected revenue. Since ‘select’ activities were allowed to re-open from 20 April 2020 and the company says it is now, ‘dispatching cement from all locations.’ It added that the majority of demand was currently coming from retail markets as some institutional projects restart construction. It operates 22 operational integrated plants, 23 grinding units and 6 bulk terminals. The company said that ‘conserving cash’ is its motto in 2020.

India: Switzerland-based ABB has reported its successful installation of electrification and automation systems at RCC’s upcoming 3.9Mt/yr integrated Mukutban plant in Yavatmal, Maharashtra. The plant will have a 40MW captive power plant and an 11MW heat recovery system. ABB has supplied MV and LV Switchgears with UMC100.3 intelligent motors, an ABB Ability System 800xA and an ABB Ability Expert Optimiser.

Japan: Equipment supplier Kawasaki has announced that its Vega class of boiler will be used in Taiheiyo Cement’s 8MW waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant at its 1.4Mt/yr integrated Saitama cement plant. Kawasaki says that the advantages of the Vega boiler are a compact design, a shorter installation time, a reduced induced draft (ID) fan power consumption and excellent dust-removal performance.

India: Udaipur Cement Works has applied for environmental clearance to the government of Rajasthan for the construction of a 5.0Mt/yr integrated cement plant in the state. It plans for the plant to have an additional 2.0Mt/yr grinding capacity, a 30MW waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant and a 25MW coal-fired power plant. Project Today has reported a conjectured value for the project of US$224m.

India: HeidelbergCement India is targeting expansion options to increase its production capacity to 20Mt/yr from 12.5Mt/yr. Managing director Jamshed Cooper said that the company is looking at companies in the range of 5 – 10Mt/yr in order to avoid the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) process, according to the Indo-Asian News Service. The cement producer is also planning to build a 22MW waste heat recovery unit at its Zuari plant in Yerraguntla, Andhra Pradesh at a cost of US$28m. Debottlenecking initiatives are also being conducted at a cost of US$7m to increase overall production capacity by 0.5Mt/yr when completed in 2021.

The group operates two subsidiaries locally: HeidelbergCement India and Zuari Cement. HeidelbergCement India serves the central markets and Zuari Cement, a former Italcementi subsidiary, focuses on the south of the country.

Pakistan: DG Khan has signed a deal with Sinoma Energy Conservation for upgrades at the integrated Hub cement plant in Baluchistan. The agreement includes a 10MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit and a 30MW coal power plant. No cost of the project or date of completion has been disclosed.

India: UltraTech Cement aims to increase contribution of so-called ‘green energy’ to 25% of its total power consumption by 2021 from 10% at present. It also intends to raise its contribution of renewable energy to its total power consumption by five times in the next two years to 2021 to over 10%. By building capacity for renewable power the cement producer intends to become one of the largest users of renewable energy in the Indian cement sector.

In addition to renewable energy, the green energy contribution includes energy generated through waste heat recovery systems (WHR). During its 2019 financial year UltraTech commissioned 28MW of WHR systems to take its total generation from WHR to 8% of total power consumption. Further upgrades are expected to be completed in a phased manner by 2021, taking its WHR share to 15% of its total power requirement.

“To bring the cement sector in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, UltraTech Cement’s annual emissions will need to fall by at least 16% by 2030. There are a number of solutions for reducing emissions associated with cement production as identified by the latest Low Carbon Technology Roadmap published by International Energy Agency (IEA) in partnership with Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI). These solutions need to be deployed at scale to meet the decarbonisation challenge,” said K K Maheshwari, the managing director of UltraTech Cement.

UltraTech Cement has set a target to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 25% from its 2005 – 2006 level by 2021. The company is also working on CO₂ reduction strategies including energy efficiency, alternative fuels, WHR, renewable energy and reducing its clinker ratio.

India: UltraTech Cement’s net sales rose by 20% year-on-year to US$5.24bn in its 2019 financial year from US$4.35bn in the 2018 reporting period. Its profit after tax grew by 10% to US$347m from US$317m. Its power and fuel costs increased by 33% to US$1.20bn from US$903m.

The cement producer said that production stabilised at its integrated plant in Manavar, Madhya Pradesh, reaching a clinker production capacity utilisation rate of 100% in the quarter that ended on 31 March 2019. It worked on the plants of its UltraTech Nathdwara Cement subsidiary to reach a production utilisation rate of 72% in March 2019. Both plants were acquired from Binani Cement in late 2018.

The plants it acquired from Jaypee Associates in 2017 are running at a capacity utilisation rate of 82%. A planned shutdown was undertaken at its Bela plant in Madhya Pradesh plant for cost improvements. The company intends to install waste heat recovery (WHR) units at these plants. Work on the 4Mt/yr Bara grinding unit is on track and the first phase of the expansion is expected to be commissioned during the first quarter of its 2020 financial year.

India: Birla Corporation’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose due to increased sales of blended cement in the last quarter of 2018. Blended cements represented 89% of its total sales volumes compared to 85% in the same period in 2017.

The company’s net sales grew by 14.6% to US$653m in the nine months to the end of 2018 from US$569m in the same period in 2017. Its EBITDA rose by 17.1% to US$96.8m from US$82.7m. Its cement production increased by 10.5% to 9.86Mt from 8.92Mt and its cement sales increased by 9.9% to 9.79Mt from 8.92Mt. It said that better sales in key markets had offset raw material price rises such as petcoke, coal and diesel. It noted that the price of diesel had risen by over 20% in the reporting period although it had started to soften in the most recent quarter.

The cement producer held a ground breaking ceremony in late January 2019 for a new plant being built by its RCCPL subsidiary at Yavatmai district in Maharashtra. The 3.9Mt/yr unit has an investment of US$342m and it includes a 40MW captive power plant and a 10.6MW waste heat recovery (WHR) system. Commissioning is scheduled for the 2021 – 2022 financial year. The company is also planning to upgrade RCCPL’s plant at Kundanganj with 1.2Mt/yr of additional production capacity. Other new projects include a 12.25MW WHR system at Maihar that is expected to be commissioned in mid-2019. It is building solar power plants at Maihar, Chanderia and Satna with 11MW, 3.6MW and 1.2MW capacity respectively. Birla Corporation also said that restrictions on using explosives placed on limestone mining at Chanderia in Rajasthan had increased its costs.

Kenya: Devki Group has ordered a waste heat recovery (WHR) unit from China’s Sinoma Energy for its Athi River plant as part of a US$250m package. The deal also includes supplying a power plant for the company’s steel plant in Kilifi, according to the Daily Nation newspaper. Both projects will be completed by late 2020.