Iceland: Iceland Cement has invested Euro0.1m in a specialised washboard for cement trucks. The installation includes strainers for both solids and oil. The company emphasised its social responsibility to keep the trucks, a ‘prominent feature’ in the local area, clean.

China: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has included Huaxin’s former Huangshi integrated cement plant site on its third annual National Industrial Heritage (NIH) list. The site includes three wet kilns, a warehouse, a bagging facility, slurry tanks and stone dumps. 49 disused sites from various industries were listed for NIH status, which ensures state-funded preservation and protection from demolition, on 26 December 2019.

China: Allied Minerals has commissioned a refractory production plant in Tianjin, 5km away from its existing plant in the city in Hebei province. Former Allied Minerals corporate vice president Tom Gibson explained: “We’ve built more than manufacturing plants and offices. We’ve built bridges.” The new plant will increase Allied Minerals’ supply of refractory products to cement producers in and around the city, which is located near the coast 100km from Beijing.

UK: Hanson’s ship Arco Avon has uncovered a mammoth tooth whilst dredging the seabed for aggregates for use in cement production off the east coast of Norfolk. Natural History Museum palaeontologists have identified the specimen has having belonged to a 35-year-old animal that died between 10,000 and 0.35m years ago. The dredging lane, 10km offshore from Great Yarmouth, has previously turned out mammoth vertebrae and a tusk fragment.

Egypt: Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Egyptian Tourah Portland Cement has said that it will accept offers for some items proposed for sale under auction of equipment from its decommissioned 1.0Mt/yr Tourah plant in Tura near Cairo, from which it expects to raise a total of Euro1.71m. The company said it had received ‘several bids.’ It stopped production in June 2019 due to its inability to cover costs.

Egypt: South Valley Cement’s sales in the nine months to 30 September 2019 were Euro19.2m - down by 47% year on year from Euro36.5m in the corresponding period of 2018. It lost Euro9.68m in the period compared to Euro0.94m in the same three quarters of 2018, representing a 940% increase in loss.

Angola: Chinese-based Sinotrans has exported 800t of cement on the 1344km railway journey from Cimenfort’s 0.4Mt/yr Lobito grinding plant to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Angola Press Agency has reported that the cement was ground from clinker produced in China. Cimenfort sales coordinator Francisco Idelfrides suggested that the cement company may look to expand its production capacity in 2020. He said it sold 0.3Mt of cement in eastern Angola and the DRC in 2019.

India: Several cement producers in Jammu and Kashmir are operating quarries and plants in the vicinity of Dachigam National Park without the mandatory no-objection certification (NOC) from the union territory’s Forest Department. The Deccan Herald newspaper named JK Cement, TCI Cement, Khyber Industries and Green Land Cement as companies that have as yet failed to apply for NOCs for plants in the area. The newspaper alleged political interference in favour of cement producers, publishing state government internal correspondence that gave the distances of Khyber Industries, TCI Cements, Saifco Cements, Dawar Cement, HK Cement and Cemtac Cements plants from the national park as 2.5km, 6.0 km, 3.0km, 6.0 km, 5.0km and 6.0km respectively. According to the source, the true distances are 2.2km, 3.4km, 2.3km, 3.6km, 4.0km and 4.9km and this is part of the state’s support for illegal cement production which constitutes a ‘politician-bureaucrat-cement mafia nexus’ which has enabled private companies to ‘flout norms with impunity.’

US: The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting public comment on a proposed shale-clay exploration project by Ireland-based CRH’s subsidiary Ash Grove Cement near its Clark Gulch quarry. The Observer has reported that the project would consist of construction of a 0.62km road and the extraction and transportation of a 10,000t sample. The window for comment closes on 3 January 2020.

Brazil: Ireland-based CRH has engaged the US-based bank Citigroup to seek buyers for its Brazilian business, which consists of the integrated 0.7Mt/yr Arcos plant and 0.6Mt/yr Cantaglo plant and the 1.0Mt/yr Santa Luzia grinding plant, according to the Brazilian Valor newspaper. CRH acquired the assets from Holcim and Lafarge at the time of the merger of the Swiss and French companies.