Colombia: Finland’s Wärtsilä has signed a further four-year extension to its operation and maintenance (O&M) agreement with Cemex Colombia. The original agreement was started in 1998 and it has now been extended to the end of 2023. Cemex’s integrated Caracolito cement plant uses a 26MW power plant operating on five Wärtsilä 18-cylinder 34SG engines in V-configuration running on natural gas. Wärtsilä employs 15 personnel in the running of the power plant, all of whom were hired locally.

Thailand: SCG’s cement business has delivered sales and earnings growth in 2019 despite problems with the company’s chemicals business. It attributed its cement sales performance to growing distribution and retail businesses. Its cement business sales revenue grew by 1% year-on-year to US$5.93bn and its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 3% to US$674m. SCG has also announced the creation of a retail joint-venture in Cambodia to sell building materials. Overall, the group’s sales declined by 8% to US$14bn in 2019.

Austria: Refractory manufacturer RHI Magnesita has launched a digital hub in Vienna to support the development of so-called ‘Industry 4.0’ initiatives. Projects the new hub will explore include automated process optimisation in data analysis and quick (QCK) and broadband spectral thermometer (BST) in measurement.

India: HeidelbergCement India’s revenue grew by 4% year-on-year to US$221m in the nine months to 31 December 2019 from US$232m in the same period in 2018. Its sales volumes fell by 1.9% to 1.22Mt from 1.29Mt. Its net profit rose by 26% to US$22.4m from US$28.3m. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement said that, despite a fall in revenue in the quarter to 31 December 2019, a decrease in petcoke prices and an increase in power generation from waste heat recovery systems, had helped to keep costs under control.

The cement producer added that de-bottlenecking work at its grinding mills at Imlai in Madhya Pradesh and Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh is expected to be completed by the end of March 2020. Following completion of the project the company’s total cement grinding capacity will be 6.26Mt/yr.