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Sarbottam Cement Industries starts commercial operation in Nepal 17 December 2014
Nepal: Sarbottam Cement Industries (SCI) has started commercial operation at its 400,000t/yr cement plant. The plant, which includes a captive power plant and a grinding unit, will employ over 1600 staff both directly and indirectly when fully functional. Saurabh Group, which has major share in import-export business of cement, steel, tea and woollen products, among others, set up SCI with an investment of US$64m. The cement plant has 45% foreign investment.
Australia: The Boral cement plant in Berrima, New South Wales, will receive a US$3.3m grant from the Environmental Trust as part of the NSW Environment Protection Authority's Waste Less, Recycle More initiative. The funding will be used to increase the use of waste derived fuels at the plant.
Executive general manager for Boral Cement Ross Harper said the achievement of the grant confirmed the potentially-important role that the New Berrima site could play in reducing the increasing impact of re-usable materials ending up in landfills.
"Since September, we have been informing our local stakeholders about the positive environmental and economic effects which can be obtained by replacing a portion of our coal consumption at Berrima with fuels derived from recovered and processed waste streams," said executive general manager for Boral Cement, Ross Harper.
Boral is currently preparing to submit planning applications which will seek approval for the use of wood waste-derived fuel and refuse-derived fuel in production at the Berrima plant. The site already holds an approval to use rubber tyre chips. Pending approvals, the site is looking to begin integration of the two fuels from the start of 2016 following construction of the new infrastructure.
Atrus halts construction of cement plant in Krasnodar 17 December 2014
Russia: Austrian company Atrus Cement has halted construction of a cement plant in Krasnodar territory indefinitely. The project has been temporarily put on hold due to a lack of funds to finance the construction, according to Interfax.
Atrus Cement was planning to build and launch a cement plant in the Crimean district of Krasnodar territory by 2016. The project will cost over US$188m and will have a cement production capacity of 2.1Mt/yr. The company had hoped to start construction in 2012 and complete the project by 2016.
Saudi cement demand drops 17 December 2014
Saudi Arabia: Demand for cement has dropped by 5% as production surpluses reached 22Mt, an amount that can cover cement consumption for five months. Jihad Al-Rashid, head of the National Committee of Cement Producers, said that total production of the national companies reached 57Mt/yr, according to local media. The committee is working with the Ministry of Commerce to allow companies to export cement as a solution. Al-Rashid attributed the existence of big surpluses of cement to a delay by the Ministry of Housing and a subsequent decline in the construction pace.
The fall in demand has occurred when cement producers predicted that demand would rise by 5%. Cement prices cannot be reduced as prices are fixed by the Ministry of Commerce. As a temporary solution some of the producers may extend maintenance periods. Abdulrahman Al-Qarni deputy president of Abawain Holding Company said that cement demand normally drops towards the end of each year, when the majority of construction companies have finalised their projects and begun to explore orders for the new year.
Suez Cement to convert two cement plants to run on coal 17 December 2014
Egypt: Suez Cement plans to spend US$84m in 2015 to convert its Helwan and Tora 2 cement plants to use coal. The move is a response to Egypt's on-going energy crisis.
The company reported a 40.5% rise year-on-year in third-quarter profit in November 2014 after it managed to pass on higher production costs to consumers. However, its nine month profit fell by 14.6% year-on-year due to severe energy shortages that forced the company to cut output by 40% so far in 2014. Suez Cement was one of the companies affected when the government cut natural gas supplies to factories in January 2014 and has had to import clinker at higher cost.