Egypt: Titan Cement Egypt is planning to spend US$8m towards building a 8MW solar power plant next to its Beni Suef cement plant. Surplus energy from the unit will be sold to the national grid, according to the Al Borsa newspaper. The project is at the bidding stage with contractors but the cement producer is believed to be in ‘advanced talks’ KarmSolar.
Schade Lagertechnik achieves re-accreditation to ISO 9001
Germany: Schade Lagertechnik has achieved re-accreditation under the international quality management system ISO 9001, as well as under the environmental standard ISO 14001 and the occupational health and safety standard OHSAS 18001. The audit was carried out by TÜV Hessen and completes Schade’s transition to the 2015 standard for quality and environmental management.
Cemex settles in lawsuit over alleged pollution from terminal in California
US: Cemex has settled a lawsuit that accused it of discharging polluted storm water runoff from its West Sacramento cement terminal in California into the Sacramento River. The cement producer has agreed to implement an infiltration basin to treat runoff from its unit, according to the Sacramento Business Journal newspaper. It will also make a donation of US$40,000 in grants to environmental projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and pay the legal fees of the plaintiff, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. The alliance had originally sought US$88m from Cemex.
Anhui Conch sales up by 35% to US$11.9bn in 2017
China: Anhui Conch’s sales revenue grew by 35% year-on-year to US$11.9bn in 2017 from US$8.85bn in 2016. Its net profit nearly doubled to US$2.51bn from US$1.36bn. The cement producer said that it had, ‘seized the favourable opportunities arising from the state’s further deepening of supply-side structural reform and the promotion of off-peak season production.’
During the year Anhui Conch opened eight cement grinding plants including Quanjiao Conch Cement, Anhui Xuancheng Conch Cement and Nantong Conch Cement. Outside of China the company completed phase two of its Merak grinding plant in Indonesia and started cement production and completed construction of the North Sulawesi Conch plant in Indonesia and the Battambang Conch plant in Cambodia. The units in Indonesia and Cambodia are due to start production in 2018. A new plant, Luang Prabang Conch, is being built in Laos and preliminary work on projects at Volga Conch in Russia, Vientiane in Laos and Mandalay in Myanmar is underway. At the end of 2017 Anhui Conch says it has a clinker and cement production capacity of 246t/yr and 335Mt/yr respectively.
The cement producer also announced that its Baimashan Cement plant was intending to start operating a CO2 collection and purification pilot project in the first half of 2018. The initiative is part of the group’s moves to implement the government’s low-carbon development strategy.
