Global Cement News

Zimbabwe: South Africa-based PPC has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a US$40m project to build solar power plants with a joint output of 30MW to support its integrated Bulawayo and Colleen Bawn cement plants. The Bulawayo plant will set up a 10MW plant, with 5MW earmarked for internal use, while the Colleen Bawn plant will develop a 20MW capacity, 12MW being used internally, according to the Chronicle newspaper. The excess electricity will be fed in the national grid. PPC has chosen ATC Consortium to build and operate the solar plants under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

Germany: Fagus-GreCon has launched its new GreCon Intelligent Extinguishing Module (IEM) for its existing spark extinguishing systems.Its sensorsoffer integrated early wear recognition and automatically report very small leaks to cement plants’ control centres.

India: UltraTech Cement recorded consolidated sales of US$6.86bn in its 2022 financial year, up by 18% year-on-year from US$5.83bn. The Aditya Birla subsidiary's net profit was US$957m, up by 34% from US$713m. Its total expenses also increased, by 20% to US$5.61bn from US$4.69bn. The sharpest rise, of 45%, was in power and fuel expenses, to US$1.43bn from US$985m.

India: Adani Group and JSW Group have submitted their non-binding bids to Holcim for acquisition of its subsidiary Ambuja Cements. The Business Standard newspaper has reported that Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech is also preparing a bid. A deal with UltraTech Cement would delay closure due to the Competition Commission of India approval process it entails. Holcim previously indicated that it would like to conclude the deal early.

Adani Group would finance any acquisition with a combination of its own cash and that from Gulf-based sovereign funds, while JSW Group would engage private equity.

Australia: Adbri has committed to reduce its cement's CO₂ emissions by 20%/t by 2030. WA Today News has reported that the company also aims to offset 100% of CO₂ emissions from its electricity consumption by 2030. It aims to achieve net zero carbon cement production by 2050. Adbri says that it is Australia's only cement producer not to use coal, relying instead on a combination of gas and refuse derived fuel (RDF).

CEO Nick Miller said "This net-zero emissions roadmap builds on our strong decarbonisation progress to date and establishes clear targets and actions we will advance as we strive to achieve net zero emissions by 2050."