France: Guy Sidos, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Vicat Group, has launched the company’s first cement carrier, Capo Cinto. The ship was acquired in partnership with ABCRM (Agency Bulk Chartering Vicat), according to Les Petites Affiches newspaper. The Capo Cinto will supply the Corsican ports of Bastia, Porto Vecchio, Ajaccio and Propiano with bulk and bagged cement, as well as Italy and the Mediterranean from the Grave de Peille integrated cement plant. French navy Vice Admiral Anne Cullerre was also in attendence at the launch.

The Capo Cinto, previously known as the Kurske, was built in 1997. The new name refers to Monté Cinto, the highest mountain in Corsica. The refitted carrier is 90.7m long, has a capacity of nearly 2000t and it has a self-unloader.

Mexico: France’s Fives has issued an update on the two raw meal grinding plants it is supplying to Cruz Azul’s Hidalgo and Oaxaca Lagunas cement plants.

Construction work at the Oaxaca Lagunas plant started in August 2018. Mechanical erection of the raw materials feeding workshop and the FCB Horomill grinding circuit started in July 2019. Electrical installation is currently under progress. The raw meal grinding workshop is scheduled to be operational by the end of March 2020.

Construction work at the Hidalgo plant started in December 2018. Mechanical erection started at the end of August 2019, electrical erection works will start in December 2019. First raw meal date is scheduled by the end of May 2020.

Both orders were finalised in November 2017. The Hidalgo plant ordered a 280t/hr grinding unit and the Oaxaca Lagunas plant has ordered a 300t/hr grinding unit. Each raw grinding plant features an FCB Horomill 4000mm grinding mill, a FCB TSV Classifier 6500 mm and a FCB Aerodecantor.

Azerbaijan: Akkord Cement’s Gazakh cement plant plans to export its fifth batch of clinker to Georgia. Further export operations are also planned in December 2019, according to the Trend News Agency. The integrated plant exported over 500t of clinker to Georgia during the first 11 months of 2019 and it plans to export up to 700t in 2020. The unit is aiming for a production volume of 1.2Mt in 2019 and then 1.5Mt in 2020. Turkey’s Dal Teknik Makina started work on an upgrade project at the plant in mid-2019.

Mali: Diamond Cement Mali (DCM) has signed a deal with La Société Malienne de Cartonnerie (SCS MDC) to procure 50kg bags to hold cement. DCM operates two plants in the country with a production capacity of 1Mt/yr, according to local press. It requires over 20 million bags per year. SCS MDC became operational locally in 2019. It runs a plant at Kamalé near Bamako. Moussa Silvain Diakité, the chief executive oficer (CEO) of SCS MDC described the contract as the company’s first ‘big’ deal.