Global Cement News

Pakistan: The Industries, Commerce and Investment department of the Government of Punjab has confirmed that it is banning the construction of new cement plants and the enlargement of existing plants. The decision follows approval by chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, according to the Nation newspaper. It is in response to a number of environmental issues allegedly caused by cement production in the province including damage to water tables and increased air pollution. Final confirmation of the ban came in response to the Supreme Court enforcing a similar ban near the Katas Raj Temples in the state.

Peru: UNACEM’s profit in 2017 rose due to a higher selling price of cement. Its net profit rose by 47% year-on-year to US$143m in 2017 from US$971.1m in 2016. Its income increased by 2.5% to US$595m from US$580m but its cement production fell slightly to 5.01Mt from 5.14Mt. Clinker production and cement despatches also fell. The cement producer blamed poor weather in the first half of 2017 that affected shipping at its Condorcocha plant as well as a general slowdown in the construction sector. It also reported that clinker exports more than doubled in 2017 to 0.55Mt from 0.21Mt.

Austria/Germany/Italy: The European Cement Research Academy (ECRA) has launched its oxyfuel carbon capture pilot projects at HeidelbergCement’s Colleferro plant in Italy and LafargeHolcim’s Retznei plant in Austria. The two locations were chosen form a shortlist of five sites. The pilots will test oxyfuel technology on an industrial scale. The test phase of the research is expected to cost Euro80m and the cement industry has contributed Euro25m towards this. ‘Substantial’ funding from European or national research schemes is being sought.

“The technical feasibility of oxyfuel technology can only be proven in real-scale application, but we have sufficient information from our research to believe that we will obtain a positive result after the trials” said Daniel Gauthier, chairman of ECRA.

Finland: Engineering equipment supplier Metso has upgraded its Tampere plant to focus on track-mounted crushing units. The new assembly line has increased mobile crushing plant production by 25%. It says it can build a 50t track-mounted crushing plant in two working days.

"Demand for mobile Lokotrack crushers for aggregates took an upward turn 18 months ago, so the timing of our investment in capacity growth was right. We want to ensure that our production capacity can meet customers' growing needs," said Markku Simula, President, Aggregates Equipment business area at Metso.

The new assembly line has six assembly stations instead of the previous five. Currently, the line is used for assembling the company’s most popular crusher models. Assembly of larger and more complex models will begin in the spring of 2018.
Aggregate crushing plants have been built in Tampere for 98 years. The first jaw crusher was completed at the Lokomo workshop in 1921. Production of track-mounted crushing plants began in 1985.

Russia: Siberian Cement reduced its cement production by 3% year-on-year to 3.1Mt 2017. Production at its subsidiary Topkinsky Cement fell by 4% to 2.06Mt and at Krasnoyarsk Cement by 10% to 0.65Mt, according the Kommersant newspaper. Production at its Timluysky cement plant rose by 26% to 0.34Mt. Siberian Cement’s vice-president Gennady Rasskazov forecast that demand for its products will remain similar to 2017 in 2018. However, demand is anticipated to fall in some regions of the Siberian Federal District.