Kyrgyzstan: Kant Cement has upgraded its packing equipment at its integrated plant. Russia’s Vselug supplied a Turbo K8 filling machine and Germany’s Berg provided compressors, according to Cement and its Applications magazine. The company plans to sell at 60% of its products in 25kg and 50kg following the upgrade.

The plant has also been installing general upgrades at the site, including a new combination burner from Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon in 2018. It is also planning to upgrade an electrical distribution substation by the end of 2019 to reduce interuptions to production.

US: The US Department of Energy (DOE) has recognised Better Plants partner CalPortland for achieving an energy intensity reduction goal of 28% since 2010. As part of DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative, the Better Plants Program works with leading manufacturers and water and wastewater treatment agencies to boost their competitiveness through improvements in energy efficiency. The cement producer was presented with an award for its efforts at the Better Plants conference in late September 2019.

CalPortland used DOE programs and software tools to help identify energy savings and accelerate investment in energy efficiency technologies and practices. Additionally, the company performed DOE in-plant training sessions driving innovation, cost savings, and the sharing of solutions company-wide to reach its target.

US: A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have demonstrated an electrochemical process to make clinker in a laboratory. A paper on the work by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, with postdoctoral researcher Leah Ellis, graduate student Andres Badel and others has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

In the new process, pulverised limestone is dissolved in acid at one electrode in an electrolyser and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is released in a pure, concentrated stream. Lime is precipitated out as a solid at the other electrode. The lime can then be processed in another step to produce clinker.

Benefits of the new process include potentially substituting fossil fuels with electricity supplied from renewable sources and the production of a pure source of CO₂ that could be captured with less or no scrubbing compared to conventional clinker production.

UK: Fuchs Lubricants is building a new Euro5.5m raw materials warehouse at its headquarters in Staffordshire. Work on the project started in August 2019 and it is due for completion in the second quarter of 2020. Once completed it will ‘significantly’ increased the amount of raw materials the business can store on-site.

The warehouse will have a capacity of approximately 4000 pallet spaces, with ability for automatic or manual storage place allocation. Two wire-guided driverless Very Narrow Aisle trucks will operate in the unit. Warehouse Control and Warehouse Management Systems will streamline the process, with benefits including goods receipt entry and booking, a paperless put away process, inventory support and batch traceability.

Namibia: Singapore’s International Cement Group (ICG)’s intended purchase of Schwenk Namibia for US$104m has fallen through. The company stated that it will not buy the subsidiary of Germany’s Schwenk Zement, whose 1.0Mt/yr total integrated capacity consists of Ohorongo Cement’s Walvis Bay plant, over four months ahead of the deal’s long stop date of 31 January 2020. The deal’s deadline had previously been extended from 30 June 2019 following the Singapore Exchange forestalled the deal due to ICG’s inability to pay for the unprofitable company.

India: A boiler at Birla Cement’s 2.5Mt/yr Chanderia plant in Rajasthan exploded on 29 September 2019, injuring an estimated 15 people. The Hindustan Times has reported that 11 people are in a critical condition. It is believed that the furnace overheated, which caused coal to scatter over workers below. Local government says that a report will come from its administrative-level investigation within 10 days, with criminal action to follow where appropriate.

Belarus: Belarus Cement Company (BCC) has begun selling its cement in 15kg bags in addition to its usual 25kg. BCC general director Alexsandr Dovgalo has said the company intends the move to increase the ability of its product to meet consumer demand.

Tanzania/China: China’s 100Mt/yr-capacity Huaxin Cement has bought Maweni Limestone from the Kenyan-based Athi River Mining (ARM) Cement. Huaxin has stated that this first incursion into East Africa is ‘integral to its broader strategy’ of expansion in emerging markets. It adds the Tanzanian producer of Rhino cement to its burgeoning portfolio of overseas assets including cement plants in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Cambodia and Nepal.

Germany/US: HeidelbergCement has purchased Giant Resource Recovery’s 1.2Mt/yr integrated Keystone cement plant in Bath, Pennsylvania for US$151m. HeidelbergCement CEO Bernd Scheifele has called the cement plant, which has 90 years’ experience as a supplier to the Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey markets, ‘an excellent strategic addition’ to the company’s North American market presence.

Egypt: Siemens has submitted an integrated survey of the digitalisation potential of various industries in four zones to the Ministry of Industry (MoI) with a view to improving the competitiveness of the country’s products. Daily News Egypt has reported that the Germany-based technology company has already signed contracts for the supply of digital efficiency solutions with El Ameria Cement and Lafarge Egypt. It is also negotiating with Misr Beni Suef for the installation of thermal emission measuring units at its 3.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Beni Suef, Maadi.