Global Cement News

France: The French High Court has decided to block Lafarge's project to close its plant in Frangey, northern France, until 25 November 2012. The Frangey facility employs 74 workers and had previously been slated for closure in 2012.

The planned closure is part of a much larger restructuring plan at the building materials' giant, which was also annulled by the High Court. However, the court said that the fundamental economic case behind closing the Frangey plant was valid. The group had explained that its decision to shut down the plant was due to overcapacity and high production costs.

The management of Lafarge will now propose a new restructuring plan to the staff representatives starting from November 2012.

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Commerce and Industry has removed restrictions that had been in place on imports of cement, saying that it "has adopted several decisions to ensure the stability of the price of cement and its provision in the local market." The decisions include halting exports, making it obligatory for cement factories to work at full capacity and making producers bear the freight costs to the areas of increased demand. It expects that these measures will mean that cement reaches consumers at a 'reasonable' price.

This is not the first step taken to ensure that the cement supply keeps pace with the huge demand for cement that the construction boom has created. Earlier in 2012 Saudi cement factories were ordered to open up new production lines. These are estimated to have added an extra six million bags to the Kingdom's production every month, taking its total monthly production to about 80 million bags.

The moves come following complaints by cement consumers in remote areas that the price of cement had skyrocketed in recent months, with some accusing dealers of fixing artificially high prices. Saudi Arabia currently has an estimated US$163.5bn-worth of construction projects in the concept phase. It is understandable that it wants to secure the best value cement possible.

China: The major Danish cement plant manufacturer FLSmidth has achieved authority approval of its first acquisition in China, which will help it to secure a lucrative share of the multibillion dollar Chinese market for environmental control technologies. The move comes less than a month after China announced new NO_x emission regulations, providing an excellent market for FLSmidth's new capabilities.

Together with a minority shareholder, FLSmidth has started a company to market and sell air pollution control products to the cement industry in China. This local company is groundbreaking for FLSmidth as it combines local presence and relations with global technologies and resources. The founder company, Chinese Sino Environment Engineering Development Co. Ltd. (SEPEC), continues as a minority shareholder and brings a large reference base and contact network from the cement industry in China, both on a corporate and a plant level.

"FLSmidth and SEPEC are the perfect fit," said FLSmidth CEO Jørgen Huno Rasmussen. "FLSmidth's strong technological platform coupled with SEPEC's strong organisation, reputation and customer base in China will enable us to develop air pollution control products that are uniquely designed together with the Chinese customer and fit his specific requirements."

The local company will market FLSmidth's highly-efficient air pollution control products and thereby help Chinese cement manufacturers to fulfil the new and stricter emission standards imposed on the industry. As the majority shareholder, FLSmidth will retain the intellectual property rights to the technology. The Chinese market accounts for half of the total world market for air pollution control equipment. "With China's increased focus on environmental aspects as stated in the 12th five year plan, the timing of FLSmidth's local expansion is just right," said CEO of FLSmidth China, Anders Bech.

India: ACC Limited has announced plans to set up a new clinker production facility at Jamul in Chhattisgarh, replacing its existing line at the plant. Currently the plant can produce 1.6Mt/yr of cement. The expansion will see this figure rise to 5Mt/yr by mid-2015. The existing line will be phased out as the new one is commissioned.

Along with the announcement, ACC also said that it is planning to set up decentralised grinding stations, which will use clinker produced at Jamul. These will be implemented in a phased manner and are scheduled for completion by March 2015.

At the same time, ACC will also increase its existing grinding capacity at its Sindri plant in Jharkhand. Another new grinding plant is currently being built at Kharagpur in West Bengal. Both installations will source clinker from the new Jamul plant.

The overall capacity of ACC will increase to 35Mt/yr when all these projects are completed, helping the company to meet the demand for cement in the east of India.

Lafarge UK has scored a notable success recently at its Cookstown Works reaching 10 years without a lost-time injury (LTI). It has emerged that this is the longest a Lafarge Group plant anywhere in the world has gone without a LTI. Cookstown also set the record the previous year in 2011, showing how far ahead it is of the rest of the group.

LTIs are generally defined as any work related injury or illness which prevents a worker from doing any work the day after the accident. Another similar measure is Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR), which takes into account hours worked by staff.

For example, in April 2011 Global Cement Magazine interviewed the safety manager at the Ste. Genevieve plant in Missouri, USA. He revealed a rate of zero lost-time incidents rate over the last 1.2 million-man hours and no LTIs over the last 700 days. Through construction the plant employed 2300 personnel and then 200 operational employees when it went live. By comparison Cookstown employs only 80 workers. Its LTIFR will be much lower.

The Mineral Products Association recorded a 81% reduction in LTIs between 2004 and 2009 for the UK cement industry. It has since set itself the further target to halve the LTIFR between 2009 and 2014. As of 2009 the UK LTIFR for direct employees was 3.59 per million hours worked. The MPAs target LTIFR for 2014 is 1.79 or lower.

Regardless of how you present the figures the Cookstown Plant LTI achievement is impressive. The challenge, as ever, lies in bettering it.