Greece: Titan Group says that strong sales in the third quarter of 2022 has driven its performance so far in 2022. Its sales rose by 32% year-on-year to Euro1.66bn in the first nine months of 2022 from Euro1.26bn in the same period in 2021. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDTA) grew by 7% to Euro235m from Euro220m. It attributed its sales growth to higher sales volumes and higher prices more than sufficiently offsetting growing energy and transport costs. Strong performance was reported in the US and construction market was described as recovering in Greece. Elsewhere, high energy costs were said to be reducing demand in Southeast Europe, market problems in Turkey continued but the group raised its prices and increased exports, saes volumes increased in Egypt and a decline was noted in Brazil.

Germany: The Catch4Climate project says it is ready to build an oxyfuel pilot unit at Schwenk Zement’s Mergelstetten plant following approval by the Stuttgart Regional Council. The project comprises Dyckerhoff, Heidelberg Materials, Schwenk Zement and Vicat, and It has set up a research company called CI4C to run it. Over Euro120m will be invested towards building a dedicated 450t/day production line to test the oxyfuel process. Jürgen Thormann, the Technical Managing Director of CI4C, said that this is the first time a so-called ‘pure’ oxyfuel process will be used for CO₂ capture. At a later stage in the project the consortium plans to use the captured CO₂ to produce so-called ‘reFuels’, climate-neutral synthetic fuels such as kerosene for aircraft, with the help of renewable electrical energy. Commissioning of the unit is scheduled for mid-2024.

UK: Cookstown Cement has rebranded as Cemcor. The company formed in January 2022 following its acquisition of the 0.45Mt/yr Cookstown cement plant from Holcim in January 2022. It then announced investments of around Euro14m towards making environmental and process upgrades at the unit. The company also purchased a limestone quarry in Cookstown, a shale quarry in Dungannon and a terminal at Belfast Harbour.

Bangladesh: The Infrastructure Development Company (IDC) has agreed to loan Crown Cement US$25m to help it build a sixth plant. The new unit will use a vertical roller mill, according to the New Nation newspaper. The IDC is a government-owned non-banking financial organisation that finances projects in the infrastructure, renewable energy, and energy efficiency sectors.