Global Cement News

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has won a US$68.9m contract from China Communications Construction to supply cement for the East Coast Rail Link project. The contract will run until the end of 2019 with options for renewal by a further two years.

Turkey: Data from the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (TCMA) shows that clinker exports rose by 32.4% year-on-year to 4.93Mt in 2017 from 3.72Mt in 2016. Cement production rose by 6.8% to 80.6Mt from 75.4Mt. Production rose in all regions with the exception of the Aegean and Mediterranean.

Australia: FCT Combustion plans to launch its Turbu-Flex burner in April 2018. The pyro-processing engineering company says that the product will enable operators to switch between different fuels and optimise for each with the one burner. Switching between alternative and refuse derived fuels is intended to allow cement and other industrial plants to lower fuel costs and improve kiln performance. The burner also offers reduced maintenance, as it no moving parts are needed to change the air supply.

“We’ve now proven the burner’s benefits and ease of use in the field. Under testing for almost one year, and operating with over 80% fuel replacement using refuse-derived fuel (RDF), the results are very pleasing for the plant operator and FCT,” said Con Manias, the Managing Director of FCT International. He added that the company also focused on building its footprint in South East Asia.

The company says that it has projects running in six continents due to a ‘surge’ in burner orders. FCT Combustion is currently working on projects in the US, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Poland, France, Egypt, Belgium, Italy, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Algeria, Oman, Belgium, France, Ukraine, Turkey and Australia.

US: Mississippi Lime Company has upgraded its Wierton plant in West Virginia to produce high reactivity hydrated lime (HRH). The product is used in the Dry Sorbent Injection industry for control of acidic gases at coal-fired boilers and other industrial processes that generate acidic gases as by-products. Mississippi Lime also produces HRH at its plants in Ste Genevieve in Missouri, Verona in Kentucky and Chester in South Carolina.

Philippines: Eagle Cement’s net profit rose by 4% year-on-year to US$82m in 2017 from US$79m in 2016. It attributed this to increased sales, which rose by 12% to US$286m.

“We have continued to beat our operational targets in terms of volume growth and cost efficiencies. Our efforts in upgrading and debottlenecking of our existing production lines allowed us to keep healthy margins despite the challenging market environment,” said president and chief executive officer Paul Ang.

The cement producer is currently expanding its production capacity with a third production line at its Bulacan plant, which is due to start operation later in 2018. The new line will increase the company’s cement production capacity to 7.1Mt/yr. In November 2017 the company broke ground on its fourth production line at its Malabuyoc plant in Cebu. The project is on track for completion in 2020, and it will add another 2Mt/yr to the company’s capacity. The work at Malabuyoc also includes a marine terminal.