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.

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.

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.

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.