Azerbaijan is home to three integrated cement plants located on the western coast of the Caspian Sea. Although it is a relatively small country with a land span of 86,600km2, Azerbaijan has vast reserves of natural resources like limestone, clay, gypsum, oil and gas, which make it an ideal location for self-sufficient cement production. Global Cement Magazine visited Norm Sement in Garadagh, Baku, Azerbaijan. Chief Operations Officer Osman Nemli described the operations at Norm Sement and outlined the country's current and future cement industry.
Norm Sement background
Cement consumption in Azerbaijan has increased massively in recent years. In 1997, consumption was 500,000t/yr; by 2010, this had grown to 4Mt/yr. At the time, the country had just one cement plant, which was owned by Holcim Azerbaijan (now part of LafargeHolcim). With a rapidly-growing economy and increasing infrastructure investments, large quantities of cement were being imported.
Norm Sement started up in 2008. Market research performed in collaboration with Holtec Consulting confirmed the need for a new cement plant. According to Norm Sement's Chief Operations Officer Osman Nemli, Azerbaijan's cement consumption per capita is considerably lower than the average for rapidly-developing economies like Azerbaijan, indicative of a lot of room for growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast of 5%/yr non-oil GDP growth in Azerbaijan up to 2015 provided further indication that a new cement plant would be much-needed.
A plot of land was acquired for the construction of the Norm Sement plant. In 2011, a contract was signed with China Triumph International Engineering Co Ltd (CTIEC) for the construction of the Norm Sement plant in Garadagh, some 55km southwest of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The plant has a designed production capacity of 5000t/day of clinker and 2Mt/yr of cement, which makes it the largest in the south Caucasus region. The plant employs 330 people directly, while 100-150 employees work on subcontracts. Prior to the construction of the plant, a 10km access road connecting the site to the main road was constructed, along with a 110kV power line, a gas line and a water line.
The plant was completed in two stages, with the kiln line being completed more than six months after the grinding line. Cement production commenced in September 2013 with imported clinker. The kiln started operations in May 2014. Since then, Norm Sement has produced cement with its own clinker.
Norm Sement produces four types of cement:
- CEM II AP 32.5 R;
- CEM II BL 32.5 R;
- CEM II AP 42.5;
- CEM II AP 42.5 N.
CEM II AP 32.5 R, CEM II BL 32.5 R and CEM II AP 42.5 comprised the vast majority, some 98.8%, of its sales in the first seven months of 2015. Norm Sement offers these three cements for sale bagged or in bulk, although CEM II BL 32.5 is not requested in bulk. In contrast, CEM II AP 42.5 N, which has comprised just 1.2% of sales so far in 2015, is only produced on request and sold in bulk. Norm Sement also sells its clinker to local grinding plants, replacing a significant quantity of imported clinker.
Raw materials
All of Norm Sement's raw materials are sourced within Azerbaijan. The company uses several wastes from other industries in addition to natural mined raw materials.
Norm Sement operates a limestone quarry 5km away from the cement plant, while its clay is sourced from another quarry 7km away. Both quarries have ample reserves for the foreseeable future. Waste limestone from local brick producers is used in addition to mined limestone. The clay and limestone is transported to the cement plant by truck, where they are crushed using a 1200t/hr single rotor hammer crusher from Hazemag. The raw material is then transported via belt conveyor and passes through a Thermo Fisher cross belt analyser before being fed to the 60,000t capacity pre-mix storage unit. Inside the unit, there are two fully-covered, 30,000t stockpiles with a 1500t/hr
stacker and a 600t/hr reclaimer.
Clay and bauxite waste are used as correctives, while natural gypsum and volcanic ash are used as additives. High grade limestone is used as both a corrective and an additive, as required. All of the correctives and additives are delivered to the plant by truck. They are crushed in an 800t/hr capacity double rotor hammer crusher from Hazemag (Figure 2). Once processed, the correctives and additives are stored in a second 60,000t capacity fully-closed storage unit (Figure 3).
Production process
The raw material is extracted from the storage units by weigh feeders and transported via a reversible belt conveyor to the raw mill intake chute through another set of conveyors. The Aumund mill-feeding belt conveyor is equipped with a cross belt analyser and the weigh feeders are controlled in a closed control loop. Hot gas from the kiln is used to dry the raw materials in the mill. For the initial start-up phase and if the kiln stops and the raw mill is operated, or in case of high raw material moisture, a hot gas generator (HGG) is installed. The targeted raw meal moisture content is <1%.
The raw materials are ground in a 420t/hr Gebr. Pfeiffer vertical roller mill (Figure 4). The mill is equipped with a new-generation high-efficiency separator. A vibro-feeder and bucket elevator is used for material re-circulation after the mill. The mill exhaust gas is de-dusted with high-efficiency low-pressure drop cyclones and a bag house filter to achieve a cleaned gas dust content of <30mg/Nm³, in accordance with EU and Azerbaijani standards. An automatic sampler from ITECA is installed after the system for continuous sampling. The cleaned gas is transported by bag house filter fan to the stack. The raw meal is collected from the bag house filter hoppers and transported to a 550t/hr bucket elevator that feeds into an inverted cone-type blending silo with a design-blending ratio of 7:1. The 20,000t capacity blending silo can supply enough raw materials for 2.5 days of kiln operations.
Under the blending silo there is a 180m3 kiln feed bin. The kiln feed is controlled by two sets of rotary scale-type flow meters from Schenck, one working and one stand-by. An automatic calibration device maintains a kiln feed system accuracy of +/-0.5%. From the kiln feed bin, the raw meal is fed to the kiln feed bucket elevator. Airtight dampers prevent false air from entering the system. The kiln feed system is de-dusted by suction bag filters to maintain a cleaned gas dust content of <30mg/Nm3.
A double-string five-stage suspension preheater with in-line calciner is installed. An air dilution fan is installed before gas entry to the bag house to reduce the temperature of the preheater gases to 220 - 230°C. CO, O2, NOx and SOx gas analysers monitor the process condition in the preheater. An air cannon and an air lance system clean the cyclones and feed pipes during operation. A 15% alkali/chlorine bypass system with a quenching air chamber, quenching air fan, bag house dust filter, induced draft fan, dust transport system, dust storage bin and truck load-out is installed. The quenching system is used to cool the kiln exit gas to 220 - 230°C. The alkali- and chloride-rich dust collected from the bag house is extracted and fed to a water-sprayed noduliser. The noduliser product is discharged to trucks and disposed of.
The 5000t/day rotary kiln (Figure 5) is powered by an 800kW main drive from Flender. The kiln shell has cooling fans and a thermal scanner monitors the kiln shell temperature. The kiln uses 100% natural gas, which is currently the most economical fuel. The gas is fired by Fives Pillard burners with a low primary air consumption burner pipe. The main burner capacity is 10,000Nm3/hr; it uses both primary and secondary air. A sampling point is installed at the kiln inlet for hot meal sampling.
The clinker is cooled to a maximum of 65°C above ambient temperature by a Claudius Peters clinker cooler. The cooler has an integrated roller-type crusher for clinker crushing. The cooler has 5500t/day of clinker capacity and a nominal cooler loading capacity of 42t/day/m2. This is larger than Norm Sement's current needs in case of surges from the kiln during operation and to allow future capacity optimisations. An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) and a cooler ESP fan de-dusts and vents the cooler exhaust gases to a dust emission level of <50mg/Nm3 at the stack, as required by EU and Azerbaijani regulations. The cool clinker is stored in a fully-covered, 100,000t capacity silo with a centre shaft and multiple discharge gates. Between the cooler and clinker silo, there is a 1000t capacity off-spec clinker silo with a telescopic bulk-loading spout that loads clinker onto trucks.
Two 150t/hr capacity grinding mills are used to produce cement (Figure 7). The horizontal ball mills are driven with central drive gear boxes and are supported on slide shoe bearings. The clinker hopper receives clinker from the silo via conveyors, while additives are fed from the additive reclaimer conveyor via belt weigh feeders. The resulting cement is transported to one of two 15,000t cement silos (Figure 8), made from reinforced concrete and designed by IBAU Hamburg, via air slides and bucket elevator. The silos both have an inverted cone design with an aerated extraction system.
The plant has three eight-hour shifts each day. Since operations began, there have been two or three kiln shut downs each year, usually when clinker stocks become high. As the plant is new, any maintenance has been minor.
Cement packing and dispatch
Norm Sement sells cement in bags and bulk. Bagged cement is transported by truck and bulk cement by cement trailer. The cement trucks were made by Mercedes-Benz, DAF and MAN, while the trailers were made by Spitzer, Feldbinder and Kaessbohrer. The vehicles can be tracked by Global Positioning System (GPS). Some 3500t, or 120 - 130 trucks or trailers, of cement leave Norm Sement on an average day. The most that can be dispatched is 5500t/day.
Four 120t/hr, eight-spout Haver & Boecker roto-packers are used for cement bagging (Figure 9). The packer has a weighing accuracy of +150/-80g/bag and can use paper or high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bags. An online automatic bag labelling machine prints dispatch details on the bags. Cement from both silos can be fed to any packer for operational flexibility. The bagged cement is transported by belt conveyors and bag diverters and dispatched via one of six 120t/hr capacity semi-automatic ground-mounted truck loaders. The bags can also be fed to the Beumer palletising and shrink-wrapping unit (Figure 10). Around 5000t of palletised cement can be stored on-site.
For bulk cement, there are two 100t/hr capacity bulk loading spouts under each cement silo that are used to load cement trucks. Under each bulk-loading spout there is an 80t capacity weigh-bridge.
Quality control
Norm Sement has an extensive quality control system. Random samples are taken from the trucks when the raw materials are delivered. The samples are kept for three months in case they need to be re-checked, ensuring full traceability (Figure 11). An automatic sampling system takes samples from two points during the production process, at the kiln inlet and the raw mill outlet.
X-ray diffraction spectrometry is used as the main tool for analysis of the raw materials, raw meal, clinker and cement products. Norm Sement has its own Pananalytical X-ray diffraction spectrometer (Figure 12), but it also uses equipment at one of the local universities that it collaborates with. Particle size (Figure 13), moisture, density and Blaine (Figure 14) are all tested in one of Norm Sement's on-site laboratories. Setting times, strength and expansion are all assessed.
Norm Sement also has a mortar laboratory and a concrete laboratory to test how its cements function in the end products. Equipment from companies such as Panalytical, Siebtechnik, Mettler Toledo, Toni Technik, Ratiotec, Memmert, Elba-Werk, Micromeritics and Retsch are installed in the laboratories. In the concrete laboratory, which contains a lab-scale crusher and lab-scale cement mill, concrete is prepared in an Elba mixer using aggregate samples from customers. Properties like flowability, compressive and tensile strength are assessed.
Nemli said that close cooperation has been established and a long-term contract signed with Germany's VDZ Scientific Research Institute. A European certificate of compliance was granted to Norm Sement products by the VDZ. In addition, it is an active member of the European Cement Research Academy (ECRA). Norm Sement is also working to improve the professional skills of its personnel; highly-qualified professionals from abroad are invited to the plant and employees take part in training courses held abroad.
Environmental and social concerns
Norm Sement currently uses natural gas as its fuel for economical reasons. However, the cement plant was constructed with alternative fuel firing capabilities in terms of its cyclone design, while the burner can be easily-replaced for alternative fuel firing. Nemli said that it is possible to use waste oil as an alternative fuel.
According to Nemli, dust emissions, which must comply with the EU standards of 30mg/Nm3 at the main stack and 50mg/Nm³ at the cooler, must be reported to the government. Norm Sement has recorded all of its emissions since the plant commenced operations, which will enhance emission controls.
Norm Sement has a good relationship with both the government and inhabitants in the area around the cement plant. It cooperates with local vocational schools and universities to jointly establish students' summer practice, internships and other qualification improvements at the cement plant. The students are invited to work and gain experience, giving them the chance to take positions as highly-qualified technical staff in the future.
Market and distribution
Nemli said that market dynamics have changed significantly since Norm Sement was first planned. In 2006, large amounts of cement and clinker were imported to Azerbaijan. The country had one integrated cement plant and many grinding plants. Norm Sement's research showed that there was ample demand to justify the establishment of a new cement plant.
Norm Sement's construction increased domestic competition and drastically reduced imports. In the first eight months of 2015, the country imported US$22m of cement, some 72% less than in 2014. Although production started in September 2013, Norm Sement did not initially push its market share, as it was operating with imported clinker for the first six months. Once the plant started to produce cement with its own clinker, it took eight months for it to become the market leader. It held 30% of the market share by February 2015, compared to 23% and 15% for two local competitors. Norm Sement aims to maintain its market share by providing consistently-high quality products and services. This is in contrast with imported cement, which is of varying quality depending on the source, as well as cement produced by Azerbaijan's grinding plants, which, according to Nemli, suffer from inconsistent clinker supplies.
According to Nemli, the cement industry in Azerbaijan does not experience vast seasonal variations, although variations do exist. The peak month for cement consumption is September, when construction activity reaches its annual high. January and February are the lowest season for cement consumption, although sales are still reasonable. While CEM II AP 32.5 R, CEM II BL 32.5 R and CEM II AP 42.5 comprise the vast majority of Azerbaijan's cement market, all of the country's integrated cement producers make their own niche types of cement.
In terms of cement sales, 55% of Norm Sement's cement is sold in bags to small and medium size construction companies, while the remaining 45% is sold in bulk, mainly to large construction companies. Smaller bulk consumers include prefabricated producers and construction chemicals producers. Nemli expects the number of ready-mix consumers to increase with time.
Future
Nemli is very positive about Norm Sement's future. Although he expects domestic cement demand to remain stable or even decline slightly in 2016, demand is forecast to grow from 2017 onwards. Nemli named oil prices as the biggest threat to the cement market in Azerbaijan, but he anticipates a slight increase in prices in 2015 and 2016. He commented that prices were, however, unlikely to reach the previously-seen highs in the foreseeable future. In line with these expectations, Norm Sement expects its capacity utilisation to increase in 2 - 5 years.
Although currently all of Norm Sement's products are sold on the domestic market, one option being explored to increase capacity utilisation is the start-up of cement and clinker exports. The company is looking into exports to the Caucasus region, possibly via the Caspian sea. Norm Sement's research has shown that starting exports would be economically-challenging.
Norm Sement's near future plans include optimising its production process and installing a waste heat recovery (WHR) system to use hot gas from the cooler and the preheater to produce electricity in the plant. It also plans to increase its cement range in line with market demand. Accordingly, a new 15,000t silo with six chambers will be built in the near future. Its top priority regarding new cement types is oil well cement. Indeed, American Petroleum Institute (API) certified oil well cement production was included in the original cement plant contract. Norm Sement is also currently performing market research to assess the demand for white cement.
"Having achieved our current goals, we must strive for new ones with more determination to ensure complete provision of the domestic construction industry's demand for high-quality cement," said Nemli.