Austria: RHI Magnesita is celebrating the tenth anniversary of first opening its Training Centre Cement in Leoben, Styria. The centre supports the regional cement industry with RHI Magnesita’s knowledge and experience of refractory bricks and mixes installation. It has held more than 50 instructive courses.

Centre leader Peter Steinkellner said “We are very pleased that more than 550 professionals from various countries have attended our trainings in the past 10 years.”

Papua New Guinea: Mayur Resources has signed a collaboration agreement with First Graphene Limited for the production of low-carbon cement using the latter’s PureGraph graphene-based grinding aids and performance improvers. Mayur Resources operates a 0.9Mt/yr cement plant, where it also produces a further 0.75Mt/yr of clinker and 0.2Mt/yr of lime, near Port Moresby in National Capital District. The Australia-based partners hope to export their cement across Melanesia and to Polynesia and Australia.

Portugal: Cimpor is participating in a consortium, led by power company Rega Energy, which plans to invest Euro100m in developing scalable green hydrogen production plant technologies. The consortium will deploy infrastructure for its upcoming Vale Hidrogénio Verde Nazaré (NGHV) green hydrogen plant by 2023, including a dedicated 40MW solar-powered electricity grid. It will commission its first green hydrogen plant by 2026, creating 140 new jobs. The consortium aims subsequently to scale up the plant to a renewable power consumption of 600MW. It hopes that, when fully commissioned, the NGHV plant will be a reference project for green hydrogen production.

Trinidad & Tobago: Current and former employees of Trinidad Cement have held two-day weekly protests since 10 January 2022 outside the company’s Claxton Bay plant in Couva–Tabaquite–Talparo Region. Staff from the past 10 years reportedly say that the company owes them their agreed cost of living allowance, gain shares and backpay.