Displaying items by tag: railway

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement’s revenue grew by 6% year-on-year to US$6.26bn in the nine months to 31 December 2018 from US$5.90bn in the same period in 2017. Its net profit rose by 5% to US$308m from US$294m. The cement producer said that domestic sales had been supported by railway infrastructure projects as well as domestic housing.

India: The South Central Railway (SCR) hopes to increase its cement loading capacity to 27.5Mt/yr in the current financial year. It has handled 20.5Mt in the nine months to the end of Dcember 2018, according to the Hindu newspaper. The cement industry represents the second largest freight segment for the Indian railway sector with a share of 23% of a capacity of 500Mt/yr for the 2017 – 2018 year.

US: Aggregate Industries, a US subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, has secured the contract to provide concrete for the US$2bn Minneapolis-area Southwest Light Rail Transit (LRT) extension of the Metro Green Line. The new line will run 14.5 miles from downtown Minneapolis to the suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and require construction of 16 new stations, plus the rail infrastructure itself. The project will require an estimated 0.30Mm³ of ready-mix concrete. It includes the construction of 44 structures, 29 new bridges, two cut and cover tunnels, six pedestrian tunnels, 15 at-grade crossings, 110 retaining walls and over 45,000m of track.

India: Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, has laid the foundation stone for Ramco Cements’ new 3.15Mt/yr integrated plant at Kalavatala, Kolimigundla Mandal in Kurnool District. The project has an investment of nearly US$210m. The plant will include a waste heat recovery (WHR) unit and a captive power plant. A 25km railway line from Samjamala has also been proposed to support the plant. Once the required statuary clearances are obtained the plant is expected to take 15 months to build.

Other new projects the cement producer has scheduled include an upgrade at its Jayanthipuram plant in Krishna District to 4.6Mt/yr from 3.1Mt/yr with a 27MW WHR unit. The project has a cost of just over US$100m and it is expected to be commissioned in March 2020. The company is also upgrading the grinding capacity of its Vizag plant to 2Mt/yr from 0.9Mt/yr. This project has an investment of around US$25m and is also expected to be commissioned in March 2020. Once these three projects are completed Ramco Cements says that it will become the largest producer in Andhra Pradesh with a production capacity of nearly 10Mt/yr.

In the east of the country Ramco Cements us building a new 0.9Mt/yr grinding plant in Odisha with a railway terminal for around US$70. This is expected to be commissioned by September 2019. In West Bengal the company is upgrading the grinding capacity at its Kolaghat plant in East Midnapore district to 2Mt/yr from 0.9Mt/yr for around US$60m. This project also includes a railway terminal and it is scheduled for commissioning in April 2019. Altogether the company plans to reach a cement production capacity of 20Mt/yr by 2020 across the country.

UK: The planning department of East Lothian Council in Scotland has granted planning permission to an upgrade of Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant. The work will include building a new cement grinding mill, a new cement storage silo and a rail loading facility. The work will also include a shed, belt conveyors pneumatic pipelines and associated works.

In its supporting statement the company said that the new cement mill was necessary to produce new grades of cement required for modern construction and the cement market. The proposed mill will replace two existing mills on the site and is intended to be more energy efficient and quieter than the existing mills. It added that the plant would benefits from rail sidings on both the south and north side of the East Coast Mainline railway line. At present trains are fed only on the south side using adjacent silos where train capacity is already fully used. Additional products are exported by road.

India: Kalburgi Cement has commissioned a 1.2Mt/yr bulk terminal at Khapoli near Mumbai. The unit had an investment of US$10m, according to the Hindu newspaper. The subsidiary of France’s Vicat plans to transport cement by train from its 2.25Mt/yr Gulbarga plant to the new terminal to supply the market in Mumbai. In 2010 Vicat purchased a majority stake in Bharati Cement, which has a production capacity of 5.5Mt/yr. It sells cement under Bharati brand name.

Malaysia: A US$70m contract with Lafarge Malaysia to supply cement for the East Coast Rail Link project has been suspended by China Communications Construction pending a government review. The deal was originally announced in March 2018. The cement producer said that the suspension is not expected to have any significant financial impact its operations in the period up to the suspension, as completed work shall be compensated for in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contract. However, going forward the company could not rule out any negative financial impact following the government review of the project.Lafarge Malaysia railway supply contract suspended

Nigeria: The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) is in discussions with Dangote Cement to transport cement. Fidet Okhiria told the Herald newspaper that talks between the companies are at an advanced stage. He also disclosed that the Lagos to Ibadan and Itakpe to Warri standard gauge railway line projects are on course and are about to start being tested respectively.

Nepal: Huaxin Cement has signed a project investment agreement with the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) to build a US$140m plant. Xu Gang, vice-president of Huaxin Cement signed the deal with Maha Prasad Adhikari, the chief executive (CEO) of IBN, during a visit by Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to Beijing, according to the Kathmandu Post. The unit will have a production capacity of 3000t/day. The local subsidiary, Huaxin Cement Narayani, has already acquired a limestone mine at Panikharkha in Dhading. The IBN will also support the project by assisting the government to build a transmission line to supply 18MW of electricity to the unit.

KP Sharma Oli also signed an agreement with the Chinese government to build a cross-border railway between Kathmandu and Kerung in Tibet.

India: JSW Cement has inaugurated a 6.5km railway siding to its 2.4Mt/yr Salboni cement grinding plant in West Bengal. The railway siding will connect the unit to the main railway line between Godapiasal and Salboni, according to the Economic Times newspaper. The new connection is expected to reduce logistics costs at the site.

The rail yard at the plant has five lines running parallel and connected to each other. Two lines are designated for receiving raw materials, two lines are dedicated for cement loading and the fifth line is reserved for engine reversal. The plant initially intends to receive two rakes of raw materials per day and one rake per day of cement for despatch.