Rwanda: West China Cement subsidiary Anjia Cement has inaugurated its Muhanga grinding plant at the Muhanga Industrial Park in Gitarama. Xinhua News Agency has reported that West China Cement invested US$50m in the plant's construction. It subsequently aims to raise its total investments in Rwanda to US$100m.

Rwanda Development Board chief executive officer Clare Akamanzi said "Over the past five years, we have registered investments from China worth close to US$1bn, which will collectively generate up to 25,000 jobs for Rwandans."

Australia: Cement Australia has commemorated the 100th anniversary of the start of operations at its Railton cement plant in Tasmania with a centenary dinner.

Production manager Garry Bissett said "When it opened up in 1923, they built the small kiln, and it was only capable of cement production of 25,000t/yr; now we're producing 1.4Mt/yr." He added that the workforce has fallen to less than half of its original size of 300 people, to 140. Bissett concluded "We're doing some major work, with a lot of capital upgrades in the near future."

Australia: Alternative cement and concrete producers have welcomed a new Australian civil engineering standard that allows builders to use reduced-CO2 geopolymer concrete in infrastructure projects. Wagners, which produces Earth Friendly Concrete (EFC), said that the revision has removed on if its key barriers to wider market acceptance. EFC replaces 100% of cement with supplementary cementitious materials, including ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and pulverised fly ash, by virtue of its binder technology. Wagners previously supplied EFC for the London Power Tunnels project in the UK, based on local technical approval-based building codes. The producer now expects a new standard like the Australian one to follow in the EU.

China: Huaxin Cement has blamed a fall in its profits in the first half of 2023 on falling clinker prices and sales volumes in its home market. In a preliminary results announcement, it reported that its net profit dropped by 25% year-on-year to US$166m in the first half of 2023 from US$221m in the same period in 2022. Despite this, the group’s operating income rose by 10% to US$2.20bn from US$2.00bn. Its overall sales volumes of cement and clinker increased by 2% to just under 30Mt. However, domestic sales volumes decreased by 0.76%. It also reported that concrete sales volumes grew by 82% to 10.9Mm3.

More Articles ...

Subcategories