Global Cement News

US: Welding Alloys has released information about a project to rebuild a FCB Horomill at Buzzi Unicem’s Maryneal cement plant in Texas in early 2018. The engineering company’s Mexican subsidiary Welding Alloys Panamericana has experience of rebuilding these types of mills and it collaborated with the group’s American wing, Welding Alloys USA, on the project.

France/Italy: Chryso has signed an agreement to buy certain assets of Italy’s Ruredil, including its cement additives, concrete admixtures and technical mortars business divisions, but excluding the Rurmec brand. The cost of the acquisition has not been revealed. The transaction is expected to complete over the summer of 2018 subject to the satisfaction or waiver of customary conditions precedent.

“The combination of our operating businesses in Italy will provide a wider range of products to our customers, as well as improve our geographic coverage, enabling us to serve a greater number of building companies and cement and concrete manufacturers across Italy and abroad. The businesses will have strong offerings to answer the new technical challenges of the building industry,” said Thierry Bernard, president and chief executive officer of Chryso.

In Italy, Chryso operates as Chryso Italia, which was established in 1997. Its customers in the region include cement manufacturers, concrete producers and building companies. Ruredil is an Italian company, established in the 1950s. It manufactures chemicals and structural reinforcement systems, and owns well-recognised brands in the construction industry such as Ruredil and Levocell.

US: CRH has completed the sale of cement and ready-mix assets to Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) following its acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. Ireland's biggest company sold the Trident cement plant in Montana to GCC for US$107.5m.

The move comes less than a month after CRH received regulatory approval from the US Federal Trade Commission to acquire cement manufacturer Ash Grove Cement for US$3.5bn in a deal first announced in September 2017.

As part of the transaction with GCC, CRH acquired most of the ready-mix plants and transportation assets belonging to GCC in Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas for US$118.5m. GCC will continue to own and operate four ready-mix plants in the Fort Smith, Arkansas area and own an office building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which it will lease to CRH.
The purchase and sale amounts have been paid in full but are subject to final inventory valuation adjustments, which are expected to be completed within 90 days.

Vietnam: FCT Combustion Inc has secured a supply contract for its Turbu-Jet AF burner that fires low calorific value coal and fuel oil to Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin). It will be used at the group’s 0.8Mt/yr Quan Trieu cement plant in Thai Nguyen Province. Viet Bac Mining is a partner in the project.

US-based FCT Combustion, which launched its Turbu-Flex burner in April 2018, said that the product would enable the operator to switch between different fuels and optimise for each with one burner. Switching between alternative and refuse derived fuels (RDFs) is intended to allow cement and other industrial plants to lower fuel costs and improve kiln performance. The burner also offers reduced maintenance, as there are no moving parts needed to change the air supply.

Managing Director Con Manias said that FCT is mainly focused on building its footprint in Southeast Asia. It has recently won projects in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Australia, prior to this one in Vietnam. The company is also working on an upgrade to the hot gas generator at Votorantim Group’s Vidal Ramos plant in Santa Catarina, Brazil. It is also supplying its Turbu-Jet AF burners with blowers, ignition, and flame detection systems to CSN Cimentos’ Arcos plant in Minas Gerais state, also in Brazil.

The company say that it has projects running in six continents due to a ‘surge’ in burner orders. It is currently working on projects in the US, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Poland, France, Egypt, Belgium, Italy, Algeria, Oman, Belgium, France, Ukraine, and Turkey, besides Asia Pacific.

Peru: Domestic cement sales climbed by 8.25% in Peru in May 2018. They had grown by 8.17% in April 2018, according to figures released by the National Institute of Statistics.