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Minerals Product Association publishes Environmental Product Declaration for UK cement industry 05 March 2014
UK: The Minerals Product Association (MPA) has published its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). The EPD declares the UK cement industry's life cycle environmental impact and covers 100% of domestically produced cement. It builds on 10 years of sustainability information published in annual sustainability performance reports.
"Our new EPD demonstrates that we are meeting UK stakeholder and supply chain expectations by providing a detailed level of environmental footprint information," said Executive Director MPA Cement, Pal Chana.
The EPD is a standardised way of quantifying the embodied environmental impacts of a product or system over its lifetime. The information declared includes data on the environmental impacts of raw materials acquisition, energy use and efficiency, content of materials and chemical substances, emissions to air, soil and water and waste generation. Institut Bauen und Umwelt, the Institute for Construction and Environment, Europe's leading EPD programme operator, has independently verified and approved the UK Average Portland Cement EPD.
The publication of the UK average cement EPD is will allow the future production of EPDs for concrete products. The concrete industry will also be able to provide designers, contractors and clients with concrete EPD information to use in their project environmental assessment.
Cementos Molins profit falls by 77% to Euro10.1m in 2013 05 March 2014
Spain: Cementos Molins has reported 77% fall year-on-year in its profit in 2013 to Euro10.1m. The company blamed the decline in profit to a lack of one-off items on its balance sheet. Revenue fell by 9.4% to Euro832m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 18.3% to Euro158m.
Kazakhstan: Karcement JSC, a subsidiary of Steppe Cement, has successfully completed the commissioning of its new dry-process Line 5. The new kiln line will increase Steppe Cement's total cement production capacity by 1.5Mt/yr.
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology sets timetable to eliminate out-dated cement production capacity 05 March 2014
China: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has set a timetable for eliminating out-dated cement plants. The MIIT has requested that local governments in China work out structural adjustment plans for the cement industry before the end of March 2014 and propose detailed treatment measures towards on-going and finished contravening cement projects before the end of June 2014, according to the Xinhua Chinese news agency.
Hebei province has been asked to cut its cement production capacity by 60Mt/yr by 2017. Jiangsu province is to cut its production capacity by 10Mt/yr and Jiangxi province must cut its capacity by 5Mt/yr. The MIIT expects that cement production utilisation will be improved to over 75% by the end 2017 after the cement industry follows its measures. Emissions of dust and nitrogen oxide will be cut by more than 40% and the cement industry's average profit margin should be no less than the manufacturing industry's average.
Lafarge to build cement depot in east Zambia 05 March 2014
Zambia: Lafarge Zambia is building a cement depot in Chipata District, Eastern Province with an investment of US$0.7m. The depot will have a storage capacity of 3000t. Emmanuel Rigaux, managing director of Lafarge Zambia, said that Lafarge had decided to build the depot due to high demand for cement. However, he added that this new storage capacity would not be enough for the whole province and that the company would increase its number of warehouses depending on demand.