Pakistan: The All Pakistan Cement Dealers Association has suspended sales of cement in protest against ‘unjustifiable’ taxes. Asif Saeed, the president of the association, has accused the government and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) of levying ‘numerous’ taxes on the cement sector, according to the Business Recorder newspaper. He claimed that the association’s members will remain on strike until their demands are met.

Russia: The Akkermann cement brand has entered the Perm market. The Gornozavodskcement Plant near Perm has started producing cement products under the brand name, according to the Pro Perm website. 400, 500 and 600 strength products will be available in bags and CEM I 42.5N and CEM II / A-W 32.5B products will be available in bulk. The Akkermann brand is part of the South Ural Mining & Processing Company, which operates an integrated cement plant at Orenburg.

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement has set an 80% CO₂ reduction target from cement production by 2050. It also plans to reduce its emissions from cement products by 20%. It aims to do this via a variety of means including energy-saving measures, promoting co-processing, lowering the clinker factor of its cement and CO₂ capture technology. The cement producer started a pilot of a chemical absorption method on kiln exhaust gases at its Fujiwara plant in early 2019.

Bangladesh: Shahab Uddin, the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, says that five cement plants near the Sundarbans mangrove forest region have been granted environmental clearance certification. The plants are Meghna Cement Mills, Bashundhara Cement Mills, Mongla Cement Mills, Dubai-Bangla Cement Mills and Holcim (Bangladesh), according to the New Nation newspaper. Uddin said that the units were all at least 6km away from the Sundarbans reserved forest area and that the Department of Environment was monitoring their emissions on a regular basis. In 1995 the government declared a 10km area around the Sundarbans Reserve Forest as a ‘critical’ ecological zone.

India: Minister Piyush Goyal, the Commerce and Industry Minister, has confirmed that the Competition Commission of India looking into complaints of rising cement prices. He said that complaints on the had been received about the price of cement and allegations of cartel-like behaviour, according to the New Indian Express newspaper.

US: Researchers from CalPortland have published a peer-reviewed study looking at the absorption or carbonation of CO₂ by buildings, pavements and structures made from concrete. The authors argue that this negative effect on CO₂ emissions is not being considered in global, national and regional greenhouse gas accounting methods. The paper calls for focused studies on CO₂ uptake in concrete within the context of its overall Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

“It is time to further examine the value of concrete in the built environment as a significant carbon sink,” said Allen Hamblen, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of CalPortland. “To do so accurately, we must specifically look at the net effects of CO₂ sequestration in concrete and evaluate all structures over their lifetime within a circular economy.”

The study looks at previous attempts to quantify the effect of concrete carbonation, notably using work by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (SERI) that examined data from several European countries to develop practical models to gauge the extent of CO₂ uptake by concrete globally in the built environment. Different models estimated that 15 - 20% of CO₂ emissions from clinker production were reabsorbed over the lifetime of concrete structures.

France: HeidelbergCement France has finalised the acquisition of Cemex’s Centre region aggregates and ready-mixed concrete businesses. The acquisition includes seven aggregate quarries and 28 ready-mixed concrete plants. The acquired aggregates reserves and resources amount to about 25Mt. HeidelbergCement France will fully integrate the operations into its own network.

“With this acquisition, we strengthen our vertically integrated market position in central France,” said Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement. “The operations fit very well into our existing network of aggregates and ready-mixed concrete plants in the Paris region, and we expect significant synergies.”

UK: Hanson has been part of a new continuous concrete pour record in the UK as part of its work at the EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C (HPC) new nuclear power station in Somerset. It supplied raw materials for the concrete to main civil engineering contractor BYLOR, which operates the on-site concrete production plant. The 9000m³, five-day, pour was to construct the last of five reinforced concrete segments that make up the cross-shaped foundations on which all of the first nuclear reactor’s buildings will sit. The record-breaking pour beats the previous UK record set by the Shard skyscraper in London.

The completion of the foundation platform, which is up to 4m thick, represents a significant milestone for the project, described by EDF Energy as J-zero. It marks the transition from below ground activity to the construction of permanent reactor buildings above ground.

Hanson says that mix design for HPC took three years of development and testing to ensure that the concrete was of the required quality mandated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement has 65 employees directly involved in the HPC project team. To date Hanson has supplied 51,000m³ of concrete, 2.5Mt of aggregates, 210,000t of marine sand, 65,000t of cement; 105,000t of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and 125,000t of asphalt.

India: Credit rating agency ICRA expects that cement demand growth will fall to 7% year-on-year in the first quarter of the 2019 – 2020 financial year from 13% in the previous year. It has blamed this on a slowdown in infrastructure projects due to the general election and resulting labour shortages. However, higher cement prices and lower input costs - including power, fuel and distribution expenses – are forecast to improve profits. Cement consumption is predicted to increase in the third quarter due to housing demand and pickup in infrastructure schemes.

The agency also said that around 18 – 20Mt/yr of cement production capacity would be added in the 2019 – 2020 year. This will be from a variety of integrated and grinding projects. This is below the projected demand growth of 24Mt/yr but overall sector production overcapacity is expected to continue at around 71%.

India: UltraTech Cement is in talks to buy a stake in Emami Cement for up to U$800m. Sources quoted by the Economic Times newspaper say that UltraTech Cement is working with private equity companies, including KKR and Temasek Holdings, on the potential deal. Emami Group is reportedly still deciding whether to sell its entire cement business, a stake or selected assets.

Emami Cement operates a 2.5Mt/yr integrated plant at Risda in Chhattisgarh and a 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant at Panagarh in West Bengal. It acquired a 0.6Mt/yr grinding plant at Bhabua, Bihar in September 2018. In addition, the firm has mining assets in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and near Jaipur in Rajasthan. Its main markets are in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It markets its products under the Double Bull brand.