Displaying items by tag: Upgrade

Australia: James Hardie recorded consolidated sales of US$1.75bn in the first half of its 2022 financial year, up by 28% year-on-year from US$1.36bn in the first half of the 2021 financial year. Its earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) more than doubled to US$398m from US$197m. Fibre cement board sales increased by 17% in North America to 463Mm² from 395Mm² and more than doubled to 96.5Mm² from 47.3Mm² in Asia Pacific.

During the 2022, 2023 and 2024 financial years, the group plans to complete expansions of its Prattville, Alabama, cement board plant in the US and a European cement board plant, and to establish a new cement board plant in Victoria, Australia. It also aims to purchase land in the US for a future new cement board plant there.

CEO Jack Truong said "Our mission is to be a high-performance global company that delivers organic growth above market with strong returns, consistently. Ten consecutive quarters of growth above market with strong returns has led to an acceleration in operating cash flow, which is allowing us to expand our global manufacturing capacity, accelerate our growth initiatives, return to ordinary dividends, reduce our debt position, and increase the cash contributions to the Asbestos Injuries Compensation Fund (AICF)."

Chile: Cementos Polpaico has submitted an environmental impact study for a US$60m upgrade of its Cerro Blanco cement plant in Tiltil, near Santiago. Business News America has reported that the proposed work consists of the installation of a new precalciner, an expansion to its four limestone quarries and the establishment of a new filtered tailings deposit and 3000t cement silo.

The producer hopes to launch the project in January 2023 in order to commission the upgraded plant before 2026.

Pakistan: Fauji Cement says that two planned cement plant projects will increase its total cement production capacity by 64% to 10.5Mt/yr by mid-2023, from 6.4Mt/yr at present. The producer plans to establish a 2.05Mt/yr cement plant at Dera Ghazi Khan. After its commissioning before mid-2023, the plant’s capacity will more than double to 5.65Mt/yr. Subsidiary Askari Cement is expanding its 2.8Mt/yr Nizampur cement plant’s capacity by 73% to 4.85Mt/yr. The group estimates that the total 4.1Mt/yr-worth of new capacity will increase its national cement market share to 13% from 6.7%. It says that this will make it the second largest cement company active in Northern Pakistan, after Bestway Cement.

Fauji Cement said that it is well positioned for growth. It generated 70% of the power consumed in its operations in 2020 itself.

Germany: Cemex Zement’s Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg, cement plant is to host a new 100t/day carbon capture installation. Cemex Zement will collaborate with UK-based Carbon Clean on a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the project. The system will combine captured CO₂ with sustainably sourced hydrogen in order to produce green synthetic hydrocarbons. The partners aim to increase the system’s CO₂ capture capacity to 300t/day by 2026, before finally scaling it up to 2000t/day.

Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia regional president Sergio Menendez said “This project with Carbon Clean is the latest development in Cemex’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality at the Rüdersdorf cement plant by 2030, through our pioneering carbon neutral alliance with expert industrial consortiums. Carbon capture will play a fundamental role in the efforts to succeed at this goal and ensure our operations are more sustainable.”

Russia: Kavkazcement has announced that it will use its Kavkaz cement plant's annual shutdown in the winter of 2021 - 2022 to upgrade the plant's raw materials mills and kiln lines. The Eurocement subsidiary plans to spend US$7.14m on the work, which also includes the replacement of burners in kilns 2 and 4 and the installation of new drying drums, compressors and electrostatic precipitators. The upgrade will increase the 3Mt/yr plant's cement capacity by 10% and its clinker capacity by 30%. Managing director Vladimir Sokoltsov said that the upgrade focused on minimising the plant's environmental impacts.

Sokoltsov said “We will prepare the plant for the high construction season in April 2022. Our products are used in the construction of the largest industrial, transport and municipalinfrastructure in southern Russia." He continued "We understand that the quality of life of a large number of people depends on the pace of our work.”

Switzerland: Jura Cement has installed a PREMAS 4.0 continuous monitoring system supplied by Aumund at its Wildegg cement plant. The system informs operators about the condition of the equipment used in cement production at the plant in real time via the PREMAS Cloud. It also provides service life estimates for critical components.

The Wildegg plant previously hosted a prototype PREMAS 4.0 in early 2020.

Head of Maintenance Ramona Keller said “We are convinced that predictive maintenance has a future. With PREMAS 4.0, we can better plan spare parts and maintenance, which has a positive effect on resources and costs. The PREMAS Portal is easy to use and very clear. It enables us to recognise immediately where there is a need for action, regardless of time and place."

Watch out for more on this project in the forthcoming December 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Croatia: LafargeHolcim Croatia has successfully commissioned a continuous mercury monitoring system in the stack of its Koromačno cement plant in Istria. Gasmet supplied the system via its regional distributor RACI.

LafargeHolcim Croatia Production Engineer Ivan Marićsaid “The product gives us exactly what we want – peace of mind. We now know where we stand with our mercury emissions.”

Switzerland: Holcim Schweiz has replaced the kiln stack at its Eclépens cement plant. Deputy plant manager Christian Petit said that the previous stack had been in place since 1971. He thanked the team which installed the new 100m-high stack on 22 October 2021.

Cameroon: Cimenteries du Cameroun has begun building a new US$88.4m 0.5Mt/yr line at its 0.15Mt/yr Figuil cement plant. Agence Ecofin News has reported that the line is scheduled for commissioning in October 2023. It will have an additional clinker capacity of 0.1Mt/yr. When commissioned, the expanded plant will serve northern Cameroon, Chad and the Central African Republic, and bring the company's total cement capacity to 2.5Mt/yr.The LafargeHolcim Maroc Afrique subsidiary, in which the Cameroon National Investment Company (SNI) holds a minority stake, aims to compete with market leader Dangote Cement in Cameroon.

China: Anhui Panjing Cement has ordered an upgrade to its production line from KHD and AVIC. The project includes: installing new triple cyclones in conjunction with existing preheater top stage twin cyclones; a partial modification of downcomer duct; installing a new preheater fan; adding optimised and larger dip tubes for the existing cyclones; installing a new Pyrobox type calciner firing system; adding new raw meal pipes for the two lowest cyclone stages; making calciner modification within the existing preheater building; and installing a new kiln drive system. Where possible the project plans to use reuse existing equipment. It is scheduled for completion by January 2022. It follows a previous upgrade at the plant in 2020 – 2021.

Other recent orders that KHD has announced with China-based cement companies include an upgrade to a production line at Hongshi Group’s Lanzhou plant in Gansu province and the installation of NOx-reducing modifications on a 5000t/day clinker production line operated by China United Cement Baoding.