Mexico: Cemex’s total dispatches of its Vertua reduced-CO₂ concrete in Mexico reached 284,000t in 2021. After launching the product in its home country on 8 December 2020, the company supplied it to 3820 sites throughout 2021. Cemex says that it enters 2022 with 1580 orders outstanding.

Pakistan: Fauji Cement has taken out a loan of US$212m from a consortium lead by Habib Bank Limited. The Business Recorder newspaper has reported that the funding will go towards cement plant expansion projects with a total cost of US$339m. Fauji Cement plans to expand its plant in Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab, while its subsidiary Askari Cement plans to expand its plant in Nizampur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The company says that the projects will together increase its installed cement production capacity to 10Mt/yr.

India: NCL Industries has reported an 11% drop in its cement production in the third quarter of the 2022 financial year (1 October 2022 – 31 December 2022) to 561,000t from 633,000t in the corresponding period of the 2021 financial year. The company’s cement dispatches also fell by 11% in the period, to 558,000t from 625,000t. Meanwhile, its cement board production grew by 16% to 19,900t and dispatches of cement boards remained level year-on-year at 19,100t.

Spain: LafargeHolcim España has announced the launch of a joint venture called ECCO2 with Carbon Clean and Sistemas de Calor. The joint venture will develop carbon capture technology for use at the producer’s Carboneras cement plant in Almería. It will then seek to market captured CO₂ from the plant for use as a gas in local agricultural greenhouses. When commissioned in early 2023, the carbon capture system will have the capacity to capture 10% of the Carboneras plant’s CO2 emissions.