Global Cement News

Philippines: Holcim Philippines plans to invest nearly US$300m towards increasing its production capacity by 30% to 13Mt/yr by 2020. It will upgrade its plants at Bulacan and Misamis Oriental with the installation of new kilns, mills and waste heat recovery systems. The upgrades are intended to support the country’s economic development and strong construction sector.

“Our capacity expansion ensures that we can provide a steady supply of quality building materials to support the government’s infrastructure program and the resulting construction activity from the economy’s sustained rise,” said John Stull, Holcim Philippines president and chief executive officer (CEO).

The projects are part of a series of capacity and productivity investments that Holcim Philippines started in 2012 with the rehabilitation of its grinding plant in Mabini, Batangas. This was followed by debottlenecking of plants in 2015 and expansion projects in La Union and Davao that are set to be completed in 2019.

Kazakhstan: The Rudny cement plant plans to start production in early December 2018. Arkhimed Mukhambetov, governor of the Kostanay region, attended the launch ceremony of the unit, according to the Trend News Agency. It has reportedly had a total investment of US$100, double the previous amount published in local media. The 0.5Mt/yr plant has been postponed several times since 2010 due to a lack of finance. The company’s director, Artem Maklasov, said that a consignment of up to 0.3Mt of cement from the plant will be sold to Ufa in Russia. Subsequently, cement from the plant will be sold in Kostanay region and in southern Russia.

Russia: Eurocement is upgrading its Kavkazcement plant in a Euro13m project until May 2019. Production will continue throughout out the work. The plant is preparing to increase cement production in 2019 by refurbishing kilns that were not used in 2018. The clinker cooler and a static grid will be installed in January 2019. From February to May 2019 work on the plant’s raw material lines and cement mills will be conducted. In addition selected buildings at the site will be replaced.

India: Shree Cement plans to invest around US$140m towards building two grinding plants at Jharkhand and Odisha respectively. Both units will be supported by the company’s integrated plant at Chhattisgarh, according to the Press Trust of India. Each grinding plant will have a production capacity of around 2Mt/yr but this will vary depending on the type of cement produced.

The cement producer also started a new plant in Karnataka in late November 2018. It expects the site to take three years to ramp up production.

India: A report by the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) shows that the local cement sector is on track to meet its 2030 targets from the low carbon technology roadmap (LCTR). Direct CO₂ emission intensity fell by 5% in 2017 in the Indian cement sector compared to the 2010 baseline. CO₂ emission intensity, including onsite or captive power plant (CPP) power generation, was reduced by 6.8% compared to the 2010 baseline. The alternative fuels thermal substitution rate (TSR) increased by 5 times from 2010 to 2017. The sector consumed more than 1.2Mt of alternative fuels in 2017.

“Sustainability is a journey, not a destination. In our globalised and interconnected world, no one can solve alone the challenges ahead of us and the only opportunity to succeed is through collaborative partnerships, where the common interests of all are considered as more important than the sum of individual interests. This is exactly the spirit that has animated the CSI’s low carbon journey since 1999. This flagship project - with its members - has developed, implemented and shared collective solutions for measuring, reporting and improving its greenhouse gas reduction performance, year after year,” said Philippe Fonta, managing director CSI.

The CSI and the International Energy Agency (IEA) worked with nine local CSI member companies - ACC, Ambuja Cements, CRH, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), HeidelbergCement, Orient Cement, Shree Cement, UltraTech and Votorantim Cimentos - to carry out the status review on the sector’s performance trends, continuous implementation measures and notable achievements based on the milestones set in the 2013 LCTR. The Status Review Report was developed in consultation with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), with support from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA).

The findings of the report show that the direct CO₂ emission intensity was reduced by 32kgCO₂/t cement to 588kgCO₂/t cement in 2017 mainly due to an increased use of alternative fuel and blended cement production, coupled with a reduction in clinker replacement factor. However, the study also shows that significant efforts will be needed to meet the 2050 objectives of 40% reduction. The CO₂ emission intensity (including onsite or CPP power generation) has reduced by 49kgCO₂/t cement to 670kgCO₂/t cement in 2017 compared to the baseline year. The report has highlighted the adoption of waste heat recovery (WHR) systems by local cement plants.

The alternative fuels TSR increased to 3% in 2017 from 0.6% in 2010. More than 60 cement plants in India have reported continual usage of alternative fuels, with 24% of the total alternative fuels consumed as biomass. The share of blended cements used in the total quantity of cement manufactured increased to 73% in 2017 from 68% in 2010, largely due to the market’s growing acceptance of blended cement, emerging awareness of sustainability concepts, the availability of fly ash from thermal power plants and the use of advanced technology. The production of Pozzolana Portland Cement grew to 65% in 2017 from 61% in 2010. The share of Portland Slag Cement in cement production remained flat, at less than 10%, over the same period. The clinker factor reduced to 0.71 in 2017 from 0.74 in 2010.

In August 2018 the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) said it was taking over the work previously done by the CSI from 1 January 2019.