Displaying items by tag: Plant

Brazil/US/Vietnam: FCT Combustion has released details on new burner projects it is involved with. Selected projects include the commissioning of Gyro-Therm burners for Kilns 1 and 2 for use with natural gas, coal, petcoke and solid alternative fuels at Lehigh Cement’s Evansville plant in Pennnsylvania in the US. The supply also included the burner management system, valve trains, fans and other accessories.

The company is also working on an upgrade to the hot gas generator at Votorantim Cimentos’ Vidal Ramos plant in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Also in this country it is supplying Turbu-Jet AF burners with blowers, ignition and flame detection systems to CSN Cimentos’ Arcos plant in Minas Gerais.

Finally, in Vietnam the burner supplier is to provide a Turbu-Jet AF burner firing low calorific value coal with fuel oil to Vinacomin’s Quan Trieu Cement plant.

US: US Cement is in the process of obtaining a draft air permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to build a white cement plant in Brady, Texas. A public hearing on the application will be made in late June 2018. The subsidiary of Royal White Cement plans to build a single line 0.5Mt/yr white cement plant.

Hungary: Germany’s IKN has provided information on its role with an environmental upgrade to Duna-Dráva Cement’s Vác plant. The Euro22m project was commissioned in April 2018. The 2400t/day clinker production line was modified by IKN to handle a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) substitution rate of up to 100% in the calciner. The two lower cyclone stages were replaced, a complete new preheater tower with the inline calciner was erected, a new bypass system and a new static inlet in the clinker cooler were installed. IKN says that it completed the project in just less than two years on an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) basis.

Denmark’s FLSmdith also worked on the project replacing the line’s bag filters with an electrostatic precipitator system. This part of the environmental upgrade cost Euro4.7m.

France: LafargeHolcim France has started the first phase of a Euro100m upgrade project its Martres-Tolosane cement plant. The first phase of civil engineering work has been awarded to Eiffage Génie Civil and it will be carried out until mid-2020. The stage of the project will build the foundations to support a new production line and its preheater tower. The upgrade will also enable the unit to increase its alternative fuel substitution rate to 80% from 30% at present.

Afghanistan: The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has cancelled the Afghan Investment Company’s (AIC) contract to operate Ghori cement factory in Baghlan province. The AIC has been accused of not meeting a contractual obligation to upgrade the plant, according to Salam Watandar radio. Minister Nargis Nehan said that the company has due to invest US$152m in the unit but that it had only spent US$51m on the project. In addition it had acquired an outstanding loan of US$13m from the ministry. Mehmood Karzai, brother of the former president Hamid Karzai, is a shareholder in AIC.

Cameroon: Cimencam will spend US$70m to upgrade its integrated plant at Figuil. A new kiln is being built at the plant to meet increased demand from export markets in Chad and the Central African Republic, according to the Cameroon Tribune newspaper. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim is also building a cement grinding plant at Nomayos.

Estonia: Kunda Nordic Tsement plans to spend Euro2.2m on upgrades to its operations. The investment will be used for emission improvements, updating its plant’s power distribution system, starting to use clinker dust in cement grinding and dredging the port of Kunda, according to the Virumaa Teataja newspaper.

The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement increased its output of clinker and cement by 20% and 60% respectively in 2017. Its plant relaunched its second kiln in 2017 but this increased its CO₂ emissions. It produced 1081kg of CO₂ per ton of clinker compared to the European target of 766kg. The plant operates two wet process kilns but it plans to switch to a dry production process in the future as this would help it reduce its emissions.

HeidelbergCement holds a 75% stake in the company with the rest belonging to Ireland’s CRH.

South Korea: Ssangyong Cement plans to install a waste heat recovery (WHR) unit at its Donghae plant in Gangwon. The upgrade will be operational by August 2018, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. The new unit is expected to save the cement producer about 33% of its electricity costs or US$24m/yr.

The investment is the largest that the cement producer’s owner Hahn & Company has approved since it took control. The WHR will work with an energy storage system (ESS) that was installed in March 2018. The ESS saves power consumption by storing energy during the night and then using it during the day. The 22MWhr storage system is power by powered by 2880 batteries. The company said that it would save it at least US$2.4m/yr.

Ssangyong Cement’s Donghae plant is one of the largest in the world with a cement production capacity of 11.2Mt/yr across seven production lines. It occupies an areas of 11.3MM².

Vietnam: The Ministry of Industry and Trade has proposed that the government transfers the management of Quang Son cement plant to the Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) from the Vietnam Industrial Construction Corporation (Vinaincon) due to high losses and mounting loans. Both companies are run by the government, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. The loans have grown to 95% of the total investment of US$153m of the project, putting financial pressure on Vinaincon.

Under the proposal, Vicem will have to take care of all the loans taken by Vinaincon for Quang Son cement plant, formerly known as Thai Nguyen cement plant. The project started commercial operation in July 2011 with a production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr of cement.

India: Police have arrested the owner of a factory near Gaurichak in Bihar manufacturing counterfeit cement. Over 5000 bags of cement were seized, according to the Telegraph of India newspaper. Cement bags falsely branded as Birla Gold, Lafarge and other companies were found at the site. Packaging machines were also impounded. Police said the unit was collecting expired bags of cement and reusing them. The investigation will now move on to finding contractors who have been selling the fake products.