Global Cement News

Lafarge UK has scored a notable success recently at its Cookstown Works reaching 10 years without a lost-time injury (LTI). It has emerged that this is the longest a Lafarge Group plant anywhere in the world has gone without a LTI. Cookstown also set the record the previous year in 2011, showing how far ahead it is of the rest of the group.

LTIs are generally defined as any work related injury or illness which prevents a worker from doing any work the day after the accident. Another similar measure is Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR), which takes into account hours worked by staff.

For example, in April 2011 Global Cement Magazine interviewed the safety manager at the Ste. Genevieve plant in Missouri, USA. He revealed a rate of zero lost-time incidents rate over the last 1.2 million-man hours and no LTIs over the last 700 days. Through construction the plant employed 2300 personnel and then 200 operational employees when it went live. By comparison Cookstown employs only 80 workers. Its LTIFR will be much lower.

The Mineral Products Association recorded a 81% reduction in LTIs between 2004 and 2009 for the UK cement industry. It has since set itself the further target to halve the LTIFR between 2009 and 2014. As of 2009 the UK LTIFR for direct employees was 3.59 per million hours worked. The MPAs target LTIFR for 2014 is 1.79 or lower.

Regardless of how you present the figures the Cookstown Plant LTI achievement is impressive. The challenge, as ever, lies in bettering it.

TÇMB: Board members of the Turkish Cement Manufacturer's Association (TÇMB) were selected at its 54th General Assembly in Ankara on 28 February 2012. The board re-elected Mustafa Güçlü as the Chairman of Board of the TÇMB by acclamation.

An economics graduate from Ankara University, Güçlü has held positions in the Turkish Finance Ministry and Foreign Trade Inc, becoming the General Manager of General Directorate of State Monopolies in 1991. In May 2000, Güçlü started to work as the General Coordinator and the Chairman of Executive Committee in Çimentaş Group.

Hanson UK (HeidelbergCement): Chris Coton, Hanson UK's concrete technical services manager for the south west, died suddenly on 26 February 2012. Coton, aged 59, began his career at the Swansea plant of the now-defunct Pioneer, which was acquired by Hanson, part of the HeidelbergCement group, in 2000.

Coton became area technical manager for Hanson in 2000 and in 2004 he became technical services manager responsible for over 40 concrete plants. Hanson's national technical director Charlie Jones, said, "Chris was a great character and well respected throughout the industry. I will miss him greatly as I am sure many of his colleagues will. He was a good friend and an industry stalwart. Our condolences go to his wife Elaine."

A US environmental pressure group is reportedly claiming that Ash Grove has started the process to close two of its wet kilns in Midlothian, Texas. Ash Grove has retorted that the decision is not final yet.

The move fits with a new emissions timetable imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to come into effect in 2013. Yet Ash Grove's response also suggests that it is keeping an eye on the impending Cement Sector Relief Act. Approved by the US House of Representatives in October 2011 with strong Republican support, if this bill makes it to law then the EPA will be forced to recind some of its existing rules concerning emissions from cement plants. This situation could help Ash Grove to manage its kiln investment. Either way, it's no wonder that Ash Grove hasn't committed yet.

All this democratic uncertainty contrasts rather nicely with the last missive from the Chinese Ministry of Information and Technology announcing more cement industry targets as part of the latest Five-year Plan. China's cement industry will source 65% of its electrical needs from waste materials by 2015. Simple! China is currently dealing with wet kilns in a similar fashion. They are being 'eliminated.'

Before we become too fixated on supposed Western decline, our third kiln-related story this week follows a test run at the Lafarge-Strabag plant in Hungary. Billed as one of the most environmentally friendly plants in Europe, the 1Mt/yr facility is due to be finished by 2015. Just in time for China's next Five-Year Plan.

Ireland: The board of CRH has appointed Nicky Hartery as chairman designate and Heather Ann McSharry as a non-executive director. Hartley will succeed the present chairman, Kieran McGowan after the company's annual general meeting in May 2012.

Hartery, aged 60, who joined the board of CRH in 2004, was vice president of manufacturing and business operations for Dell Inc.'s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations from 2000 to 2008. Prior to joining Dell he was executive vice president at Eastman Kodak and previously held the position of president and chief executive officer at Verbatim Corporation in the United States. Hartery is a chartered engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland, an electrical engineering graduate from University College Cork and holds an MBA from University College Galway.

McSharry, aged 50, is chairman of the board of trustees of Bank of Ireland Pension Fund and is a director of Ergonomics Solutions International, IDA Ireland and the Institute of Directors. She is a former managing director of Reckitt Benckiser and Boots Healthcare in Ireland and was previously a director of Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Business Studies degree from University College Dublin.

Lafarge's annual report summed up the European malaise this week: too much debt; too little growth.

The world's biggest cement company posted a Euro3m loss for the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to a Euro62m profit for the same quarter in 2010. Overall for the full year in 2011 its income fell by 28%. Yet all of this occurred in the same year that the group sold the bulk of its gypsum assets for over a quarter of a billion Euros! All of which went into the group's debt reduction of Euro2bn.

Compare this to 2010 when Lafarge recorded a 12% increase in net profit for the year and the group was expecting an increase in cement demand of 6%. Chief Executive Bruno Lafont's words were, "The steps we have taken in 2010, ranging from structural cost savings to strategic investments in growing markets such as Brazil will provide the foundation for further improvement and growth as we enter 2011."

6% growth did happen in 2011 but only in the emerging markets in the Middle East and Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. Overall sales growth remained at 3%, dragged down by sales decreases in North America and western Europe. Understandably Lafarge's outlook for 2012 remains muted.

All this gloom was compounded by the UK Competition Commission raising its concerns about the joint-venture between Anglo-American and Lafarge. With Lafarge expecting 'higher pricing' for 2012 any move with even a whiff of anti-competitive behaviour will draw in the watchdogs. With western European sales down by 2% in 2011 the challenge remains for the group, and for all cement producers, to somehow find profit once more in the mature markets.