Global Cement News

Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan: The head of Kazakhstan’s Cement and Concrete Producers Association (QazCem), Erbol Akimbayev, has claimed that Uzbekistan’s Cabinet of Ministers issued a confidential order in July 2025 that disrupted cement exports from Kazakhstan, ‘severely impacting’ bilateral trade.

Akimbayev alleged that the document requires Kazakh exporters to declare cement at a price 10 times higher than normal and pay taxes accordingly, making exports unprofitable, according to local press.

Akimbayev said “As a result, in August 2025, imports of Kazakh cement to Uzbekistan dropped to zero for the first time in seven years. At that price, no one in Uzbekistan will buy it. But if Uzbekistan acts this way, Kazakhstan has every right to introduce reciprocal measures.”

He added that the association is in discussions with government bodies and industry partners, warning that reciprocal measures could lead to a fall in imports from Uzbekistan. He suggested that Uzbekistan is seeking to protect its domestic producers amid market oversupply ‘by any means necessary.’

This week we covered Capitol Aggregates’ order of an alternative fuels (AF) system from ATS Walter USA. The story is notable because it is an AF project for a cement plant in the US. Thermal substitution rates (TSR) of AF in the US have typically been lower than in the European Union (EU), but this could be changing.

The order was confirmed publicly at the end of September 2025. The subsidiary of ATS Group will supply a solid AF metering and conveying system to the integrated plant in San Antonio, Texas. The system will include a moving floor receiving station, chain belt conveyors, a screen and a separator, dosing equipment, an air-supported belt conveyor and an injection system. ATS Walter says that, by the end of 2026, it will have supplied four AF projects in North America. As an aside, Capitol Aggregates also mentioned in the press release that it “...views sustainability as essential to long-term success.” This sentiment is backed up by the fact that the plant built an early commercial carbon capture unit in the 2010s!

Data from the American Cement Association (ACA) revealed that the AF TSR in the US reached 16% in 2023 from 14.6% in 2022. This compares to a 58% rate in the EU in 2022. It is also worth noting that, in the US the share of gas in the cement industry energy mix rose from 25% to 31%. The ACA attributed this change to a falling price of gas. It added that the coal and petroleum share of the fuel mix fell to its lowest level since 1974. The point here is that the energy mix used by cement plants changes over time regardless of sustainability trends.

Research by LEK Consulting estimated that 60 of the 87 cement plants in the US had a TSR of below 20% in 2023. 39 of these were believed to have a TSR of under 5%. It summarised that hazardous waste and tyre-derived fuels have tended to predominate in the US compared to refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in the EU and elsewhere. LEK went on to say that its research suggested that a quarter of cement plants in the US were likely to install an AF feeding system in 2024 or 2025. This is likely to be the highest rate of AF uptake in the US cement sector to date.

The ACA reckons in its sustainability roadmap that with the right policies and regulations the country’s AF TSR could reach as high as 50%. Its policy suggestions include: reduce permitting barriers to use of so-called non-hazardous secondary materials (NHSM) fuels in industrial manufacturing; treating waste-to-industrial energy as valid recycling use; building robust recycling infrastructure and markets that incentivise the use of non-recycled material streams as industrial AF; community education and support for use of low carbon AF; and increasing the use of NHSMs to divert these materials from landfills. This can be mostly summarised as supporting the uptake of RDF through better permitting and building up the infrastructure and markets for it. LEK also identified the same issue. It called for the adoption of landfill reduction targets or zero-landfill policies by commercial and industrial waste generators. However, LEK believes that, even if this were done, current sources of high-quality RDF in the US would not be able to increase the TSR to even 20%.

News from Capitol Aggregates and others about AF projects in the US are encouraging. If LEK’s research is indicative then a step change in the TSR in the country’s cement sector is already underway. The beauty of AF usage is that it can both potentially cut fuel costs and reduce CO₂ emissions. It won’t be easy as new supply chains for refuse byproducts are built and utilised. Yet, as the ACA is advocating, it is possible and worthwhile.

The 1st CemFuels Asia Conference will take place in Bangkok in February 2026 and the 19th Global CemFuels Conference will take place in September 2026 in Geneva

US: Vulcan Materials has appointed Ronnie Pruitt as its CEO with effect from the start of 2026. Tom Hill, the company’s current CEO and chair, will become its executive chair.

Pruitt holds over three decades of experience in the building materials sector. He has worked as Vulcan’s Chief Operating Officer since mid-2023. Prior to this, he was Senior Vice President for Vulcan's Southwest and Western Divisions. He joined Vulcan in 2021 with the acquisition of US Concrete, where he worked as CEO. He has also worked for Martin Marietta Materials and TXI.

Vulcan Materials produces construction aggregates and materials including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete. Its headquarters are in Birmingham, Alabama.

Spain: Maritime traffic between the ports managed by the Valencia Port Authority - Valencia, Sagunto and Gandia - and Israel rose by 25% in 2024. The ports of Valencia and Sagunto maintain a direct connection with Ashdod, 40km south of Tel Aviv. Since the start of the conflict in Gaza and until September 2025, Israel has imported more than 165,000t of white cement from the Port of Valencia, compared to virtually none in 2023, according to official data from the Port of Valencia via the El Diario newspaper. Up to 15 ships carrying white cement from Çimsa Cementos’ Buñol plant have reportedly departed from Sagunto for Ashdod. Industry experts said these exports represent around 12% of Buñol’s 700,000t/yr capacity. For comparison, Holcim’s Sagunto plant produces 110,000t/yr of white cement.

Libya: Hungary-based company Rotary International has proposed building a new cement plant in Libya as part of the country’s infrastructure reconstruction programme. The project was presented during talks in Tripoli between the company and Mustafa Al-Samou, undersecretary of the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, according to Zawya news. The ministry said in a statement that the facility will use ‘environmentally friendly’ technologies to boost local cement production, meet domestic demand and reduce reliance on imports. The talks also covered broader cooperation and investment opportunities in the building materials sector to expand industrial activity and attract foreign expertise and capital.