Displaying items by tag: Plant

Spain: Cementos Molins has allocated Euro200m towards dismantling old production lines at its Sant Vicenç dels Horts plant near Barcelona. Kilns, towers, silos and obsolete buildings will be removed as part of the project, according to the La Vanguardia newspaper. The plant operates a single 1.4Mt/yr production line that was commissioned in 2010.

Nigeria: BUA Group is ready to commission a new 1.5Mt/yr cement production line at its Sokoto Cement plant in the northwest of the country. The upgrade will increase production at the unit to 0.5Mt/yr, according to the Vanguard newspaper. The company exports cement from the plant to neighbouring Niger. The new line will run on coal and natural gas. The cement producer also operates a 3.5Mt/yr plant at Okpella & Obu in Edo state in the mid-west of the country.

China: Austria’s Semperit has closed its Sempertrans Best (Shandong) Belting plant in Shandong. The decision was made as part of review of the group’s production footprint. The plant had a higher margin than other sites. The closure is also expected to reduce the complexity of operations at the group level. 120 employees will be affected and the shutdown is expected to burden the group’s earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) by Euro10m in 2018.

The groups subsidiary in Shandong was founded by Semperit as a joint venture with the state-owned energy company Wang Chao Coal & Electricity Group in 2010. The Chinese partner currently holds a 16.1% stake. The production site manufactures textile and steel cord belts and has served the export markets and the Chinese market so far.

US: The Federal Trade Commission has forced CRH to sell the Three Forks cement plant in Montana as part of its proposed acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. The plant and its quarry will be sold to Mexico’s Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Also under the settlement, because the CRH cement plant in Montana currently sells a significant amount of cement into Canada through two CRH terminals in Alberta, GCC will have the option to use those terminals for three years. CRH also has agreed to purchase, at GCC’s option, cement produced at the plant for distribution in Canada for up to three years.

The commissions ruled that the acquisition would harm competition in Montana, Nebraska and Kansas. Other divestments the Irish building materials company has agreed to include selling two sand-and-gravel plants, one sand-and-gravel pit, three limestone quarries and two hot-mix asphalt plants.

Following the agreed divestments, the FTC has issued its consent for CRH’s proposed acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. No further regulatory approvals are now outstanding for the transaction. The acquisition is expected to complete in June 2018. Ireland’s CRH agreed to buy Ash Grove Cement for US$3.5bn in mid-2017.

Tunisia: Ciments de Bizerte is planning to upgrade the cement grinding capacity by 20% at its plant in Bizerte. Other anticipated upgrades include the installation of a new 10,000t cement silo and the contruction of a captive wind farm, according to the L'Economiste Maghrébin magazine.

Armenia: Hrazdan Cement has been purchased by GM Holding and is back in operation. According to local media reports the cement plant was bought by a company owned by Arsen Mikaelyan, the chairman of Armbusinessbank, in late 2017. The bankrupt cement producer was previously taken over by its creditor, the VTB Bank (Armenia).

Hrazdan Cement, originally known as Mika Cement, was built in 1970. The company was privatised in 2001 and has had financial problems since 2013. The cement plant has two production lines and a clinker production capacity of 1Mt/yr and a cement production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr.

Spain: LafargeHolcim has chosen its Carboneras cement plant in Almeria as a refrence training centre for its European operations. The plant was selected due to its port and high level of staff expertise amongst other reasons. A group of LafargeHolcim engineers from Poland, France, the UK, Romania, Croatia, Greece and Serbia have all recently visited the site for a training course.

Russia: Yakutcement has started the third kiln at its plant at Mokhsogollokh in Khangalassky. The new production line has a clinker production capacity of 0.5Mt/yr, according to Sakha Life. Representatives of local government and the management of the cement plant’s owner’s Vostokcement attended the opening. Cement from the new line is intended to support local demand in the region.

Pakistan: Germany’s Aumund Fördertechnik is supplying equipment for a new 8000t/day production line that Flying Cement is building at its Mangowal plant in Punjab Province. Aumund is providing bucket elevators, pan conveyors and silo discharge gates for the project.

One belt bucket elevator will feed raw meal to the silo. It is designed with a centre distance of 87.6m and will reach a capacity of around 650t/hr. The other belt bucket elevator will also have a capacity of 650t/hr. Its centre distance is 115m and it will take raw meal to the heat exchanger. Flying Cement will use an Aumund KZB 1200/400 pan conveyor to transport clinker to the main silo. This conveyor will be approximately 115m long, with a lift of 43.5m, and a capacity of up to 580t/hr. The off-spec silo will be served by an Aumund KZB 1200/400 pan conveyor which is 42m long and has a capacity of 580t/hr. The order also includes 13 silo discharge gates.

The bucket elevators will be dispatched to Pakistan at the beginning of August 2018 and the pan conveyors will be supplied in a second consignment at the end the year.

China: Anhui Conch has suspended production at three of its production lines at the cement plant run by its Tongling Conch subsidiary at Gusheng in Anhui province. The suspension has followed the temporary closure of a pier used by the plant in late May 2018 in accordance with new government regulations on drinking water supply and pollution.

Use of the pier has been suspended as it is close to the Tongling Water Treatment Plant. The pier is used to export cement and clinker products from the unit and bring in raw materials such as coal. The temporary suspension of the plant’s production lines will reduce its clinker production capacity by 58% to just under 9Mt/yr from 15Mt/yr.

The cement producer has defended its environmental record, pointing out that the pier was approved with all the necessary licences and environmental approvals in 1987. Construction of the water treatment plant started in 1992.

Clinker products produced by Tongling Conch are mainly sold to Anhui Conch’s subsidiaries, including cement grinding plants along the Yangtze River and on the coast. The company plans to source clinker from other plants to continue supporting the affected grinding plants.