Global Cement recently spoke to Eng. Ehab Dewedar, Plant Manager at El Nahda Cement, about the plant’s history, current production process and the current situation in the Egyptian cement sector...
Plant profile
Plant | El Nahda Cement |
Location: | Qena, Qena Governorate |
Capacity: | 5500t/day (~1.76Mt/yr) |
Permit: | 1.5mt/yr (Currently reduced to 1.05Mt/yr) |
Markets: | ~43% to Qena Governorate (1) ~52% to Sohag (2), Red Sea (3) and Aswan (4) Governorates ~5% to Cairo <1% to Sudan |
Global Cement (GC): Please could you outline the development of the El Nahda Cement plant?
Eng. Ehab Dewedar (ED): The El Nahda Cement plant is located 40km by road from Qena city at 22km Qena-Safaga road, around 170km from the Red Sea coast in the southern half of Egypt. The plant was established by three public companies: The Egyptian Chemical Industries Holding Company (~50%), the Arab Contractors Company (~30%) and the Egyptian Insurance Holding Company (~20%), with a remit to cover the market need for cement in southern Egypt.
The plant was built by TCDRI, part of Sinoma, with key equipment from European suppliers. Cement production is a long-term investment. You will pay more up front for European equipment, but the quality and durability will pay you back well in the long run. The contract was signed in November 2008, with production starting in January 2012.
Plant and production process
GC: Please could you outline the production process used at the plant?
ED: The plant has a nearby captive quarry, which contains four types of limestone. No blasting is required to remove the material, it can just be removed using bulldozers. After the limestone is trucked to the plant, the four types of limestone are combined according to the mix design and crushed in a Hazemag primary crusher. We may also add 0 - 2% clay from our captive quarry to the mix, to ensure the correct blend chemistry.
We have storage of 2 x 30,000t limestone storage buildings and one 2000t clay storage building. The material is conveyed to our Loesche vertical roller mill, which has a capacity of 450t/hr. This is followed by a single 20,000t homogensation silo.
The major pyroprocessing equipment is supplied by TCDRI. The preheater is a two-string, five stage design with an inline calciner. The kiln has a rated clinker capacity of 5500t/day (~1.76Mt/yr), but our licence allows us to produce 1.5Mt/yr. The main burner is from Fives Pillard and the clinker cooler is from IKN.
After the cooler comes the clinker storage. We make two types, ordinary Portland clinker (OPC) and sulphate resistant clinker (SRC). These are stored in two 35,000t clinker silos, a total of 70,000t. Clinker is ground in a 300t/hr Loesche vertical roller mill to produce OPC, SRC and a CEM II blend that contains ground limestone. These are stored in four 10,000t cement silos. In 2021 we mainly produced OPC (70.7%) and a branded OPC called SAKHRA (15.7%). SRC contributed 11.2%, with CEM II contributing around 2.4%
Most of the products are bagged using our FLSmidth Ventomatic bagging plant. Indeed 84.6% of our cement was bagged in 2021, with just 15.4% bulk cement. All products leave the plant in trucks.
Fuels and environment
GC: What fuels does the plant use and how is this changing with time?
ED: The plant was designed in 2008,when the main fuel used by Egyptian cement producers was heavy fuel oil (HFO). However, following the revolution in 2011, many of the companies that produced fuels in Egypt withdrew. Cement producers had to import whatever fuels they could.
When the new government was formed in 2014, the picture changed again. While HFO could again be produced in Egypt, supplies were low and prices were high. The government rationed HFO and prioritised electricity generation over other industrial users. Like many others, the plant management at El Nahda Cement decided to switch to coal, the lowest cost option at that time. This transition was encouraged by the Ministry of the Environment, which issued regulations for the import, grinding and firing of coal within the cement sector. The direction of travel was clear, so in 2016 the plant received its first coal mill. It ground its first coal in February 2016.
We also made alterations to the main burner. It now has three channels instead of two, with the ability to fire HFO, gas and coal as required. This ability is now proving its worth, as the international price of coal has increased. Indeed it is now higher than HFO. Accordingly, the plant recently switched back to a primary HFO mixture.
GC: Does the plant use any other kinds of fuels?
ED: We use 10% waste oil. This is sourced from vehicles, filling stations, power stations, etc, and distributed to industrial users by the Ministry of Petrol. For us it is a low cost fuel, but it also helps us to meet our obligations to use 10% of alternative fuels, which has been in place since 2020. In the future, we will also use refuse-derived fuels (RDF) from municipal sources. Other cement plants in Egypt already use RDF as a fuel, but issues with supply have prevented El Nahda doing so to date. However, these are being resolved and the necessary feeding systems are being built now. We anticipate that we will burn our first RDF in mid 2022.
In terms of our emissions, all cement plants in Egypt report their emissions continuously to the Ministry for Environment, with monthly visits too. The El Nahda plant uses a mixture of baghouses and electrostatic precipitators. All of the plant’s emissions are below the permitted levels allowed in Egypt. Our annual average dust emission was 29mg/Nm3, below the 50mg/Nm3 permitted level. For SO2 it was 0.1mg/Nm3, against a limit of 400mg/Nm3. For NOx it was 460mg/Nm3 against a limit of 600mg/Nm3. To offset the sector’s CO2 emissions, the Ministry for Environment now mandates that plants undertake aforestation projects. We are working on this project right now.
Markets and future
GC: What are the plant’s main markets and how are they served?
ED: The plant was established to serve the southern Egyptian market and it clearly fulfils this remit. Around 95% of the products are delivered to the four Governorates that surround the plant: Qena, Red Sea, Aswan and Sohag. Around 5% goes to Cairo for national projects and less than 1% is exported to Sudan due to current unrest there.
GC: How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the plant so far?
ED: Demand dropped in 2020 and 2021 as the result of the pandemic. However, in July 2021 the government wisely decided to restrict production through the use of quotas. Our plant saw a reduction to 70% of the permitted 1.5Mt/yr (clinker), which is 1.15Mt/yr (cement). We decided to stop the kiln for nearly five months in the second half of 2021. Thankfully there is government provision to retain all staff.
As plant manager, this time was still very productive. We performed extensive renovations and worked on the RDF and tree projects, quarry contract renewals and other tasks. There was a lot to do.
GC: What are the biggest challenges for El Nahda Cement in the next 1 - 5 years?
ED: We are battling on several fronts. The first is the overcapacity in the Egyptian market, meaning that competition is very high. The second is rising fossil fuel prices. Having just switched back to HFO due to rising coal prices, we now see that the World Bank expects oil to hit US$125/barrel in 2022. The third major issue is that higher prices take their toll on construction demand. Before the pandemic, Egypt’s GDP growth was 7%. It slipped to 2% but has since recovered to 4%. The economy may be weaker than we might have expected during 2022.
GC: What are the biggest opportunities for El Nahda Cement over the same time period?
ED: We have some in-built competitive advantages that will help. As well as the high quality of our cement, we also have a good location to increase exports to Sudan as the political disruption there subsides. The plant previously exported as much as 9% to Sudan. We are hopeful that we can return to this level, or even higher, which would make up for some of the lost sales in Egypt.
Along the same lines, we are interested to invest in some older plants in Libya. There are two plants that we are considering investing in, with a view to comprehensively overhauling the facilities.
The groundwork has also been done at the El Nahda site to build a second line. However, this has been on hold for more than 10 years due to the revolution, fuel cost increases and then, overcapacity and the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps one day we will be able to realise this aim.
GC: Thank you for your time today and for a very interesting conversation.
ED: Thank you. It was great to speak with you too.