Displaying items by tag: India
Saurashtra Cement and Gujarat Sidhee Cement announce merger
01 December 2021India: Saurashtra Cement and Gujarat Sidhee Cement have agreed to merge into a single entity. Their respective boards of directors approved the plans on 30 December 2021.
Dalmia Cement hears locals' concerns over Bokaro cement plant plans
01 December 2021India: Dalmia Cement has presented its plans for its planned Bokaro, Jharkhand, grinding plant expansion and heard locals' concerns at a community meeting. The company said that the plant would increase local employment and agreed to compensate communities impacted by its operations. The plans consist of the installation of 2Mt/yr-worth of new grinding capacity on 0.1ha of land.
UltraTech Cement begins coal mining at Bicharpur coal mine
01 December 2021India: UltraTech Cement has begun mining coal at its Bicharpur coal mine in Madhya Pradesh. The producer will use the coal in its cement production. UltraTech Cement acquired the 29Mt Bicharpur coal mine at auction in 2015.
ACC and Ambuja Cements to develop calcined clay cements with Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
29 November 2021India: ACC and Ambuja Cements have partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) to develop a range of calcined clay cements with 50% lower CO2 emissions than Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). The collaboration will vary clinker, calcined clay and limestone levels in calcined clay cements in order to ascertain their effects on its performance. France-based Holcim Innovation Centre will fund the research.
Holcim India chief executive officer and managing director Neeraj Akhoury said "Through our extensive research and development setup, we consistently strive to develop new low-CO2 materials for the construction industry. Calcined clay cement is one such avenue to make a significant quantitative difference in the industry and further accelerate our sustainability drive. Our academic partnership with IITD is a big step towards building a greener future and we are excited to collaborate with the best minds in the country."
The producers have previously partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) to study low-CO2 binders with alternative reinforcements and with the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) to develop smart sensing technology for continuous on-site strength evaluation of a concrete structure.
UltraTech Cement wins Indian Circular Economy Award 2021
26 November 2021India: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has awarded UltraTech Cement its Indian Circular Economy Award 2021 in the large enterprise category. The federation said that the award recognises UltraTech Cement's efforts to accelerate the development of a circular economic business model and celebrates its new impactful and innovative practices in 2021.
Grasim Industries’ shareholding changes
26 November 2021India: Grasim Industries has reported a change to its shareholding arrangements. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has concluded its sale of a 2% of stake in the company. LIC retains 9.8% of shares.
Ramco Cements wins National Conclave on Mines and Minerals’ Five Star award for two mines
26 November 2021India: The 5th National Conclave on Mines and Minerals has granted its Five Star mine management award to two Ramco Cements limestone mines. These are the Melavenkateswarapuram mine and Pudupalayam and Periyangalur mine in Tamil Nadu. This is the fourth successive year that the company has won a Five Star award for its mining operations in the state.
Ramco Cements commissions new 5MW waste heat recovery system at Jayanthipuram cement plant
25 November 2021India: Ramco Cements has commissioned a new waste heat recovery (WHR) unit on Line 3 of its Jayanthipuram cement plant in Andhra Pradesh. The company said that the system consists of two boilers and that the first on the line’s cooler has been started. A second boiler situated at the line’s preheater will be commissioned in June 2022. The new installation increases the Jayanthipuram plant’s WHR capacity by 31% to 21MW.
RHI Magnesita opens new Indian research and development centre amid capacity expansion drive
24 November 2021India: RHI Magnesita has opened its new Indian regional research and development centre. The centre is its fifth of its kind globally, and joins existing facilities in Austria, Brazil, China and the US.
The company is in the process of implementing a refractory production capacity expansion plan worth a total of US$53.8m. The plan consists of upgrades to its Bhiwadi plant in Rajasthan, Cuttack plant in Odisha and Vizag plant in Andhra Pradesh. It has already completed US$6.72-worth of the work with a 30% expansion at the Vizag plant. The company says that the remaining upgrades consist of both the establishment of new lines and the automation of existing ones.
RHI Magnesita India managing director and chief executive officer Parmod Sagar said “The centre will help us to better understand local market needs and to react faster to customer requirements. This is a world-class facility that will work closely with our global research and development network for local raw materials development, will provide solutions support for customer’s performance improvement projects and will support local manufacturing in the three India plants.”
Blah Blah Cement?
17 November 2021Climate activist Greta Thunberg memorably summarised the outcome of the 2021 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP26) as “blah, blah, blah” but what did it mean for the cement and concrete industries?
Making sense of the diplomatic language the UN uses is a full time job due to its impenetrable jargon. This is partly why climate activists and others may have become jaded about the outcome of the world’s biggest climate change jamboree. The conference of the parties (COP) tried desperately to hang on to the 1.5°C warming aim set at the Paris event (COP21) in 2015. This is dependent though on countries sticking to their 2030 targets and becoming net-zero by 2050 or earlier. Unfortunately, both China and India, two of the world’s current top three CO2 emitters, have announced net-zero dates of after 2050. Those two countries also drew fire in the western press for weakening the language used in the COP’s outcome document about the ‘phasing out’ or ‘phasing down’ of coal use. However, simply getting coal written on the final agreement has been viewed as a result. Other positive outcomes from the event included commitments for countries to review their 2030 targets in 2022, progress towards coordinating carbon trading markets around the world and work on adaptation finance from developed countries to developing ones.
The headline results from COP26 carry mixed implications for the building materials sector. The Paris agreement (COP21) has already achieved an effect in the run-up to COP26 by prompting the cement and concrete industries to release a roadmap from the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) in October 2021. Now it’s down to whether individual governments actually follow the targets and how they enforce it if they do. If they don’t, then the response from building material producers is likely to be mixed at best.
What may have a more tangible effect is the work on carbon markets at COP26. Countries were finally able to complete technical negotiations on the ‘Paris Agreement Rulebook,’ notably including work on Article 6, the section that helps to govern international carbon markets and allows for a global carbon offsetting mechanism. The European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has shown over the last year how a high carbon price may be able to stimulate companies to invest in mitigation measures such as upping alternative fuels substitution rates and developing carbon capture and storage/utilisation projects. Critics would argue that it may simply be offshoring cement production and closing local plants unnecessarily. Making a more global carbon trading scheme work amplifies both these gains and risks. Either way though, having an international framework to build upon is a major development. Finally, work on adaptation finance could have an effect for cement producers if the money actually makes it to its destination. The big example of this announced at COP26 was a US$8.5bn fund to help South Africa reduce its use of coal. It is mainly targeted at power generation but local cement producers, as a major secondary user of coal, are likely to be affected too.
Alongside the big announcements from COP26 lots of countries and companies, including ones in the cement sector, announced many sustainability plans. One of these included the launch of the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI) during COP26 by the governments of the UK, India, Germany, Canada and the UAE. This scheme intends to create new markets for low carbon concrete and steel to help decarbonise heavy industry. To do this it will disclose the embodied carbon of major public construction projects by 2025, aim to reach net zero in major public construction steel and concrete by 2050, and work on an emissions reduction target for 2030 which will be announced in 2022. Other goals include setting up reporting standards, product standards, procurement guidelines and a free or low-cost certification service by 2023.
All of this suggests that the pressure remains on for the cement and concrete sector to decarbonise, provided that the governments stick to their targets and pledges, and back it up with action. If they do, then the industry will remind legislators of the necessity of essential infrastructure and then continue to ask for financial aid to support the development and uptake of low carbon cements, carbon capture and whatever else. Further adoption of carbon markets around the world and global rules on carbon leakage could help to accelerate this process, as could adaptation finance and global standards for low carbon concrete. The next year will be critical to see if the 1.5°C target survives and the next decade will be crucial to see if global gross cement-related CO2 emissions will actually peak. If they do then it will be a case of ‘hip hip hurrah’ rather than ‘blah blah blah’.