Oman: Oman Cement has engaged the services of a leading consulting company for construction of its 1.8Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Duqm. The company announced the appointment of the consultancy firm to its US$212m project, which has been ongoing since December 2018, on 12 September 2019.

Italy: The 0.4Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Travesio, which has been out of operation since early 2016, has not been purchased by w+p Zement, a subsidiary of Weitersdorfer, the Austrian cement and construction materials group. Diego Franz, the mayor of Travesio, has expressed the hope that Buzzi Unicem will now oversee the decommissioning of the plant itself.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos has created a business unit to manage and provide services throughout the co-processing chain of alternative materials used in cement production with a five-year investment plan of US$98m. Valor has reported that the unit, named Verdera, will offer waste disposal services to various industries. Votorantim is targeting 80% petrocoke use in future cement production, compared to 25% at present. Its 2018 production used 0.9Mt of alternative materials, corresponding to a reduction of 0.5Mt in CO2 emissions compared with conventional materials.

Germany: Thyssenkrupp’s Materials Services division has launched a platform for digital transformation, enabling machines of different makes to communicate. The system of integrated information exchange, called Toii, has already enabled Thyssenkrupp to improve operating efficiency in-house.