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Ethiopia: The Ministry of Mines (MoM) has granted a mining license to Habesha Cement for the excavation of minerals for the company's cement production.
The contract allows Habesha to mine limestone, gypsum, clay and sandstone from 1.12km2 of land in the West Shoa Zone, Oromia Region, at four different locations. The mining operations will be undertaken with a capital of US$1.38m. The land that Habesha requested for pumice is reserved for forestation and wildlife development and it has asked for a replacement.
The mines will provide raw materials for the Habesha cement plant, which will have a production capacity of 1.4Mt/yr of cement. The company is expected to begin production in November 2015.
The mining contract will be valid for 60 years, until the minerals are fully excavated. Habesha is expected to produce over 100Mt of limestone in that time. When the company starts cement production, it is expected to use 1.1Mt/yr of limestone, 70,000t/yr of gypsum, 288,000t/yr of clay, 72,000t/yr of sandstone and 450,000t/yr of pumice.
"To get the approval, we conducted a feasibility study and environmental assessment on the areas and paid US$1.55m as compensation to the former owners of the land," said Mesfin Abi, CEO of Habesha.
Habesha Cement was established in September 2008 by 30 shareholders with an initial capital of US$30,671. Construction of the cement plant, which will cost US$120m, is underway in Beketa and Koro Odo Kebele, Oromia Region, Ethiopia.
India: Mangalam Cement Ltd has announced that the company's new 1.25Mt/yr cement mill at Kota District, Rajasthan, which had been under a trial run, started commercial production on 28 May 2014. The cement plant's total capacity has increased from 2.0Mt/yr to 3.25Mt/yr.
Sustainable expansion for Semen Indonesia
Written by Global Cement staff
28 May 2014
One of the ideas aired by several speakers at last week's 6th Brazilian Cement Congress was that using cement as a construction material is inherently a sustainable option.
The reasons for this included the durability of cement's construction products and the role cement plays in improving the living standards of a country. For example, under the onslaught of extreme weather like hurricanes, concrete structures are more likely to remain standing. Or, for a country like Brazil with sections of society living in long-term 'temporary' buildings in its favelas or shanty towns, providing affordable cement to help the country build better housing for its inhabitants is the only sustainable future that could be considered.
Perhaps in line with this concept of cement-as-sustainable-construction-material we see Semen Indonesia this week announcing expansion plans in three countries in South and Southeast Asia.
In West Sumatra a Semen Indonesia subsidiary has started building a 3Mt/yr cement plant in Padang. Then in Bangladesh Semen Indonesia revealed its intention to buy a 1Mt/yr plant. Finally, the state-owned Indonesian cement producer said that its Semen Gresik subsidiary was planning to build a new cement plant in Central Java at Rembang in June 2014. From previous press releases we can see that both new plants are FLSmidth builds. Both orders were announced in early 2014. Each has a capacity of 8000t/day.
The plans to expand outside of Indonesia echo reports that Semen Indonesia was set to buy a minority share in a Myanmar cement producer. Although the producer was unnamed as of early May 2014, Semen Indonesia CEO Dwi Soetjipto valued the stake at US$30m and the producer's production capacity at 1.5Mt/yr in comments to the Jakarta Globe.
Altogether the two new plants in Indonesia will place Semen Indonesia's total cement production capacity at 40Mt/yr by 2017 according to company figures. This would be enough to place the company within the top 20 of the world's largest cement producers by production capacity following the research from Global Cement's 'Top 75 global cement companies'.
In a nice coincidence, the company with a production capacity of 40Mt/yr on that list was Eurocement. Last week the Russian cement producer announced that it had signed contracts worth Euro387m with Chinese companies - including Sinoma, CNB, Sinomach and CAMC Engineering Co - to add 17Mt/yr cement production capacity across six plants in Russia. Another six or seven more construction agreements for cement plants are also expected to be signed in the coming months.
Certainly for the countries Semen Indonesia is focusing on – Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar, with low gross domestic product per capita – providing the raw material for stronger and more durable buildings covers some of the sustainability bases. Yet if all these new plants only use fossil fuels and are subject to few environmental restrictions then that undermines some of this. However, whether all this expansion is sustainable or not, the cement industry never remains stationary.
Allied Cement Holdings appoints Li Chun Fung as company secretary
Written by Global Cement staff
28 May 2014
China: With effect from 26 May 2014, Wong Ka Hang resigned from her office as Allied Cement's company secretary. With effect from 26 May 2014 Li Chun Fung has been appointed as her replacement.
Italy: FLSmidth Ventomatic SpA a supplier of complete plants and single machines for high-accuracy and high-capacity storage, packaging and dispatching of products for the cement and building material industry, has strengthened its position in the minerals and chemical industries through the consolidation of its partnerships Imeco(R) and Italmeccanica, both with long-standing experience in the packaging of powdery and granulated products.
Thanks to these two strong business partnerships, Ventomatic says that it is now in the position to 'design, manufacture and supply' bagging solutions that are specifically designed for the dosing and weighing of cement, dry mortars and other building materials and industrial minerals into valve bags, open mouth bags and fill, form and seal bags.