Displaying items by tag: Government

France: Holcim has opened what it says is the first calcined clay unit in Europe at its Saint-Pierre-la-Cour cement plant. The production line uses the company’s proximA Tech process to produce up to 0.5Mt/yr of products in the ECOPlanet range. The unit is powered with 100% biomass-based alternative fuels and uses waste heat recovery systems to make production “nearly carbon free and ultra-efficient.”

Miljan Gutovic, Region Head Europe for Holcim, said “The opening of the first calcined clay cement production line in Europe is another milestone in our mission to decarbonise building. We are scaling up our calcined clay cements across all regions by 2025, to advance our ECOPlanet range of low-carbon cement, making low-carbon construction possible at scale.”

The upgrade project received financial support from the French government, as part of the ‘France Relance’ scheme to invest in large-scale decarbonisation and energy efficiency initiatives.

Image by Simon de l'Ouest CC BY-SA 4.0

Bangladesh: The European Union (EU) and Spanish ambassadors and Swiss chargé d'affaires to Bangladesh have formally requested that Bangladeshi authorities lift all restrictions on LafargeHolcim Bangladesh's sale of crushed limestone in the country. The Financial Express newspaper has reported that Bangladeshi court previously ruled in favour of LafargeHolcim Bangladesh's right to sell its crushed limestone 'on the open market' on 5 January 2022. Limestone Importers and Suppliers Group had challenged the legal status of such sales, given that the raw limestone used in LafargeHolcim Bangladesh's produces its crushed limestone production is imported from India.

The Bangladesh government granted LafargeHolcim Bangladesh, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim, a temporary licence to resume its crushed limestone operations on 27 March 2022. This resulted in protests by local limestone producers.

Pakistan: A court has ordered a report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into alleged breaches of emissions rules at Kohat Cement's Kohat Cement plant in Babri Banda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Dawn newspaper has reported that alleged dust and chemical emissions from the plant have contributed to a local rise in cases of cancer, asthma and lung diseases, according to complainants.

Residents have filed a petition for contempt proceedings against the EPA and Kohat Cement, as well as local and provincial government authorities. The court previously ordered the EPA to monitor Kohat Cement's emissions in 2018. At that time, it also instructed Kohat Cement to operate its electrostatic precipitators system at all times that cement is being produced. Local residents claim that the plant has continually failed to operate the system.

Cement 2 Zero (C2Z) has officially launched in the UK this week. The project is an industrial scale pilot of the Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC) process. The Materials Processing Institute will lead on this stage with two-year funding of around Euro7m provided by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Partners include the University of Cambridge, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Brewster Brothers, Celsa Group, Day Aggregates and Tarmac.

CEC’s method uses recycled concrete paste in place of lime-flux in steel recycling. Slag is formed as the steel melts and this is then used in place of clinker to make more cement. This way of making cement cuts out the decarbonisation of limestone step from conventional clinker production. If renewably-sourced electricity is used to power the heating and grinding parts of manufacture, then cement production in this way could potentially cut out most of its CO₂ emissions. The first phase of trial melts by C2Z will be conducted by the Materials Processing Institute using a 250kg induction furnace and this will be scaled up to 6t in an electric arc furnace (EAF). Later, industrial scale melts will be tested in Celsa Steel's EAF in Cardiff, Wales.

CEC is taking a similar approach to HeidelbergCement with its research into using recycled concrete paste. However, HeidelbergCement says it is using the paste to help capture CO₂ in an enforced carbonation step it is testing at cement plants. It too though wants to create a secondary cementitious material (SCM) afterwards. There are also links here to construction and demolition waste and electric cement kilns as covered by Global Cement Weekly previously. The latter is different with regards to what CEC is doing because it is recycling concrete waste to produce an SCM (slag) rather than using an electrically powered kiln to make clinker from limestone. Coolbrook, VTT and the like have had to build electric kilns effectively from scratch or adapt technology from elsewhere for their approaches whilst CEC appears to be about to use existing EAFs in its industrial scale pilot.

Figure 1: Projection of how the Cambridge Electric Cement production process could be used at scale in the UK. Source: UK FIRES. Click to view larger version.

CEC’s forecast of how its process could be used at scale in the UK can be seen above in Figure 1. If the majority of the country’s steel scrap was recycled in this fashion each year then 2.4Mt/yr of CEC cement could be produced. This would represent a quarter of the c10Mt of cement sales reported by the MPA in 2021. Assuming the EAFs were powered by renewables then this could reduce the cement sector’s CO₂ emissions significantly. Although it would still leave the industry looking for other decarbonisation routes for the other three-quarters of cement demand.

C2Z and CEC offer a novel spin on cement production by recycling concrete waste, using an electrical heating step and dodging the process emissions associated with normal ordinary Portland cement (OPC) clinker production. If it did progress to a commercial stage then it would see a continued relationship between steel and cement producers. Currently this is mainly centered around iron and steel slag usage as a SCM. One point of interest here would be how much higher levels of steel recycling and a process like CEC being used regularly would affect existing slag usage as an SCM. It doesn’t look like CEC could solve the cement sector’s CO₂ emission problem all on its own but it could certainly make a difference if it progressed to a commercial stage. As ever with cement sector decarbonisation there appear to be a range of options available to producers.

US: The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) initiative has awarded funding of US$8.9m to Heidelberg Materials North America to study the subsurface geology for suitability for the storage of carbon dioxide at the Mitchell integrated cement plant in Indiana. The proposed project will geologically characterise several prospective reservoirs under the Mitchell plant for storage of more than 50Mt of CO₂ over a 30-year timeframe.

The award, which is managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, will be issued to the Illinois State Geological Survey at the University of Illinois (ISGS) as the prime contractor, with the company acting as a technical and industrial partner. Heidelberg Materials is contributing about US$1.5m in funding while ISGS will be contributing approximately US$0.6m for a project total of US$11.1m. The funding was part of a DOE initiative that generated nearly US$125m in funding for 10 projects to characterise suitability for carbon storage across the US.

Heidelberg Materials’ Mitchell cement plant is being upgraded with a new production line. Full production on the new line is anticipated to start in early 2023.

US: Holcim has signed an agreement with Duro-Last to acquire the roofing systems producer for US$1.29bn. Reuters has reported that the acquisition will be Holcim's largest for all of 2022 and 2023 so far. Once the parties complete the transaction, Duro-Last's business will join Holcim's products and systems division. Holcim expects the deal to yield synergies of US$60m/yr, primarily through a reduction in the cost of materials.

Holcim expects its products and systems division to contribute a majority of its profit in North America once increased investment under the US government's Inflation Reduction Act begins to take effect. In 2022, the division accounted for 40% of regional profit. The group is committed to a global target of 30% of sales being attributable to the products and systems division by 2025, compared to 19% of sales in 2022.

India: The state government of Himachal Pradesh says that it will take 'legal action' against Adani Group should it fail to reopen its Darlaghat and Gagal cement plants. The Times of India newspaper has reported that measures may include cancellation of the cement producer's relevant land leases. Out-of-work truck drivers agreed to cancel a state-wide road blockade in protest against the closures after the government promised a 'resolution' on 4 February 2022. It now plans to hold talks with Adani Group, in which it will relay truck drivers' offer of an 11% reduction in per-kilometre freight rates to US$0.12/t from US$0.14/t.

Himachal Pradesh industries minister Harshwardhan Chauhan said that the state government is empowered to take drastic measures in defence of Himachali people's interests.

Geological Survey of India (GSI) officials are reportedly investigating alleged illegal mining at the sites of the Darlaghat and Gagal cement plants.

Finland: Finnsementti and energy provider St1 have selected Norway-based Aker Carbon Capture to carry out a pre-engineering study for a planned carbon capture system at the cement producer's Lappeenranta cement plant in South Karelia. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that Aker Carbon Capture offers a 40,000t/yr carbon capture system, capable of producing 25,000t/yr of methanol for use as transport fuel. The project is scheduled to deliver commercial synthetic methanol by 2026.

The Lappeenranta cement plant carbon capture project recently received Euro35.4m in additional funding from the Finnish government, subject to European Commission approval.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement recorded sales of US$876m in the first half of its 2023 financial year, up by 42% year-on-year from US$616m in the first half of the 2022 financial year. It sold 3.57Mt of cement and clinker, down by 24% year-on-year from 4.7Mt. The producer's costs rose by 50% to US$585m from US$391m. It recorded a profit of US$73.1m, up by 6.8% from US$68.4m.

During the half-year period, total national cement sales dropped by 17% year-on-year to 20Mt, while Pakistan's cement exports fell by 49% to 1.7Mt. The aftermath of flooding, high interest rates, inflation and cost of goods and cuts to government spending all impacted the domestic cement market, while 'global recessionary trends' cut into exports, according to Lucky Cement.

Lucky Cement holds a 15% share in the Pakistan market and a 34% share in the export market.

India: Adani Group has issued a rebuttal against a recent report by Hindenburg Research accusing it of accounting fraud and stock manipulation. In the 413-page rebuttal, the group identifies the report as a 'calculated attack on India.' Adani Group clarified that that its operations complied with 'all local laws' and that it had made necessary regulatory disclosures, according to the group.

BBC News has reported that Hindenburg Research denied the accusation of anti-Indian sentiment, calling the country an 'emerging superpower with an exciting future.' Hindenburg Research said "India's future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation."

Hindenburg Research accused Adani Group in late January 2023 of conducting a 'stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme' over a period of ‘decades.’ It published its allegations in a report on its website. The investment research firm also disclosed that it had taken a short position on Adani Group, meaning that it might make money should the price of shares in Adani Group drop.

The full rebutal by Adani Group can be read online here