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Update on calcined clays in Europe, February 2023
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
15 February 2023
Congratulations to Lafarge France for launching the first calcined clay cement unit in Europe. The subsidiary of Holcim says that the unit, based at the integrated Saint-Pierre-la-Cour cement plant, is the first of its kind on the continent. It is using the company’s proprietary proximA Tech technology and will produce up to 500,000t/yr of cement in its ECOPlanet range. The operation is also powered with biomass alternative fuels and uses a waste recovery system to further drive down overall CO2 emissions. Once production ramps-up the producer expects that 30% of cement from the Saint-Pierre-la-Cour plant will be from the ECOPlanet range by 2024.
The investment at Saint-Pierre-la-Cour was Euro40m. Holcim is also producing calcined clay cement at its La Malle plant in France. It received an investment of Euro6m in 2022 to produce low-carbon cements. Together, both plants are aiming to produce over 2Mt/yr of calcined clay cement by 2024. As is usual for these kinds of projects, the French government partly funded the clay calcination unit at Saint-Pierre-la-Cour as part of the ‘France Relance’ scheme investing in large-scale decarbonisation and energy efficiency initiatives.
Calcined clay cements in Europe aren’t exactly new, but Holcim’s new unit in France does appear to be the first full-scale line located at a cement plant. Research by OneStone Consulting, for example, reckons that the first flash activated clay unit expressly set up to supply the cement sector was commissioned in 1995 in Toulouse, France. More recently, Hoffmann Green Cement inaugurated its 50,000t/yr pilot plant at Bournezeau in France in 2018. This site produces cements made from flash calcined clay and blast furnace slag, although it is unclear how demand for the different products varies. A new 0.25Mt/yr plant in the Vendée department was scheduled for commissioning in the second half of 2022. Another 0.25Mt/yr plant in Dunkirk is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2024.
Cementir Group launched its calcined clay cement product FUTURECEM in Denmark in 2021 with production via a pilot plant. It then extended this to the Benelux and French cement markets in 2022. As part of its industrial plan for 2021 - 2023 it was planning to build a clay calcination unit to support the growth of FutureCem. FLSmidth revealed in June 2021 that it had won a contract to build a 400t/day clay calcination unit for Vicat’s Xeuilley integrated cement plant. The deal was worth around Euro27m and commissioning is scheduled for 2023.
Firstly, it is interesting to see a focus on France for some of the projects above. The presence of Lafarge’s technical centre in Lyon may explain the interest for that company. However, Hoffmann Green Cement and Vicat are also active in the field. It is worth noting that France also holds a busy secondary cementitious material market with standalone operators including Ecocem, Cem’In’Eu and Hoffmann Green Cement. Secondly, despite the early start, clay calcination for cement is currently more active outside of Europe. In Africa, for example, there is at least one live full production line and a number of other projects on the way. Various other pilots and projects are also happening elsewhere around the world, often in conjunction with the limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) initiative. Where calcined clay cement production in Europe goes from here is uncertain at present as it is one solution among many for lower carbon cement products in the future. Yet, the projects that have made it so far to the commercial scale will be watched closely by the companies that have invested in them - and their competitors.
Update on recycled concrete paste, February 2023
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
08 February 2023
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.
Update on construction and demolition waste, February 2023
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
01 February 2023
Cemex launched a new waste management division called Regenera this week. Cemex describes Regenera as a “business that provides circularity solutions, including reception, management, recycling, and coprocessing of waste.” The Mexico-based company has a long and leading history with sourcing and using alternative fuels in the cement sector and the new organisation looks set to utilise this experience. What is notable though is how the business is targeting three waste streams: municipal and industrial; industrial by-products; and construction, demolition and excavation waste (CDEW). Bringing the three waste streams together in this way appears to be novel for the heavy building materials sector, particularly the inclusion of CDEW, which we will explore further here.
CDEW is split into fractions, just like the municipal and solid waste streams that end up as alternative fuels at cement plants, but the biggest fractions are generally concrete, followed by bricks. The recycled concrete is then typically used as an aggregate, either in new concrete production or in areas like road construction and earthworks. The use of recycled aggregates (RA) made from CDEW goes back to at least the 1930s in its current form although ‘reusing’ materials from structures such as castles and churches goes back far further. Recycling and reusing CDEW gained a boost in 2020 when the European Union (EU) set a 70% recovery target. However, within the EU the CDEW recycling rates vary considerably and that 2020 target includes the use of CDEW in backfill applications.
In its launch statement for Regenera, Cemex noted that it operates a dock in Paris, where it receives a variety of materials, including construction debris, excavated material and inert soil. These materials are sorted, processed and then transformed into recycled aggregates or organic material used to restore quarries. Cemex then promptly followed up the official launch of Regenera on 30 January 2023 with the acquisition of a majority stake in Shtang Recycle, an Israel-based CDEW recycling company. It added that Shtang Recycle is preparing to build a recycling plant with a production capacity of 0.6Mt/yr of CDEW waste materials. The output from the plant will be used as raw materials for aggregate production.
The focus on CDEW recycling was flagged up at Cemex’s investor event in November 2022. It said that it was targeting a recycling rate of 14Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste by 2030. Other managed waste stream goals included doubling the amount of municipal and industrial waste it manages, to achieve a 50% to fossil fuel substitution rate, and increasing its usage of alternative raw materials and by-products by 30%, thereby eliminating 13Mt/yr of extracted materials.
Cemex is not alone in targeting the CDEW waste sector. Holcim’s recent work in the area goes back to at least 2016 when a recycling unit near its Retznei cement plant in Austria started processing 130,000t/yr of CDEW. It announced in December 2022 that it was setting up a similar recycling centre, also in Austria, at its Mannersdorf cement plant. In October 2022 Holcim acquired Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials in the UK. This company recycles 150,000t/yr of construction and demolition waste into aggregates and concrete. Holcim linked the acquisition to its Strategy 25 target of recycling 10Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste by 2025.
Activity by other cement companies includes the commissioning of a construction waste recycling plant at Gennevilliers in France by CRH-subsidiary Eqiom in April 2022. It was aiming for a target of 50,000t in 2022. In November 2022 Heidelberg Materials agreed to acquire RWG Holding based in Berlin, Germany. Then, in December 2022, it announced a deal to buy Mick George Group in the UK. Both proposed acquisitions are subject to competition authority approval. Heidelberg Materials’ current target is to offer circular alternatives for half of its concrete products by 2030.
The moves by the bigger cement companies into the CDEW sector follow sustainable thinking and the waste hierarchy. Yet the big prize here is to gain a route to dispose of some of their CO2 emissions through recarbonation and this has been flagged up in several net-zero roadmaps for the cement sector such as those by Cembureau and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA). Holcim has been involved in the FastCarb project in France, running a pilot at its Val d’Azergues cement plant in 2021. Heidelberg Materials has been testing its own process with so-called recycled concrete paste. The development now appears to be that utilising CDEW has entered the sustainability strategies for some of the big cement-concrete-aggregate producers, targets have been set and acquisitions are happening.
For more information on Heidelberg Materials research into concrete recycling read the January 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine
- Cemex
- construction and demolition waste
- Sustainability
- Strategy
- GCW593
- Holcim
- Heidelberg Materials
- Acquisition
- Regenera
- recycled aggregate
- concrete
- Recycling
- France
- Israel
- Shtang Recycle
- target
- Austria
- Plant
- Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials
- Eqiom
- CRH
- RWG Holding
- Germany
- Mick George Concrete
- recarbonation
- recycled concrete paste
- FastCarb
Update on Uruguay, January 2023
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
25 January 2023
Cementos Artigas inaugurated an upgrade to its integrated Minas plant this week. The joint-venture between Spain-based Cementos Molins and Brazil-based Votorantim Cimentos has been working on the US$40m project since mid-2020. The main plan is to combine the functions of the integrated Minas plant in Lavalleja and the company’s cement grinding plant at Sayago in Montevideo at one site. Key parts of the upgrade included the installation of a new vertical grinding mill, a cellular silo and a bulk cement despatching centre. The Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle turned up for the opening ceremony.
The cement sector in the country is modest compared to those in its much larger neighbours, Argentina and Brazil. It only has four integrated plants with a total production capacity of around 1.4Mt/yr compared to, say, Brazil’s 70-odd plants with a capacity in excess of 85Mt/yr. However, a few things have been happening recently that are worth noting. Firstly, a new integrated plant operated by a new entrant opened in mid-2021. Cielo Azul Cementos y Calizas was set up by investors in Brazil with links to Uruguay. It started in ready-mixed concrete (RMX) in the early 2010s before it contracted FLSmidth in 2017 to build it a 0.6Mt/yr integrated cement plant at La Pacífica in Treinta y Tres. It has also opened an RMX plant in neighbouring Paraguay.
Votorantim Cimentos may have been irked by the opening of a new competitor in Uruguay as it blamed it for a drop in its third quarter revenue in 2022 in its Latin American region outside of Brazil. It described the dynamic in the country as ‘challenging.’ Its local business partner, Cementos Molins, was a bit more balanced in its assessment for 2021, reporting that earnings had falling slightly due to global input cost rises and that sales had fallen due to increased competition from new capacity. Whatever else happens, now that the Minas upgrade project has finished, it seems likely that Cementos Artigas’ costs have the potential to decrease.
The country’s third cement producer, Cementos del Plata, was also busy in 2022. The subsidiary of state-owned Administración Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland (ANCAP) announced in September 2022 that is was going to seek a business partner in its business. Its reasoning was that it wants to restore competitiveness to the local cement market and reverse the ‘deficit’ economic situation of the last 20 years. By November 2022, 11 companies had been selected for the next stage of the process. Notable entrants include InterCement-subsidiary Loma Negra, Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia (ECEBOL), Cementos Artigas, Cielo Azul Cementos y Calizas and the Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association (TürkÇimento). That last name is particularly interesting as it is the only organisation with an obvious link to the cement sector from outside of South America. Two China-based engineering companies are also among the contenders.
Prior to the current initiative to gain inward investment into Cementos del Plata, ANCAP has been noteworthy for union activity at its plants such as strikes in recent years. A reported attempt to privatise the Paysandú plant in 2020 was blocked by the unions, according to local press. In separate news, ANCAP concluded from an investigation in June 2022 that persons unknown had attempted to intentionally damage the kiln of its Minas plant through the introduction of foreign materials. There is no reason to connect the two stories but it does suggest that any investor into the business might want to consider a wide variety of stakeholders as part of any due diligence process.
Uruguay’s cement sector is changing as we have seen above. Cementos Artigas has completed an upgrade to one of its plants, Cielo Azul Cementos y Calizas built a new integrated plant in 2021 and Cementos del Plata is actively hunting for a partner. Just who that new investor might be has implications for the local sector. The Government of Uruguay announced in 2021 that it wanted to set up free trade agreements with China and Türkiye. Unsurprisingly, both Turkish and Chinese organisations are amongst the ones that have made it to the current selection stage.
Update on Türkiye, January 2023
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
18 January 2023
The Ministry of Trade in Türkiye said this week that it was monitoring developments in the construction industry. Specifically, the ministry is reacting to complaints it has received about the high price of cement and supply issues. It has been looking at exports of clinker and cement. The statement noted that prices had risen particularly in the last one to two months and that the government was prepared to take unspecified action to alleviate the situation.
The comments hark back to the autumn of 2021 when members of the Construction Contractors Confederation (IMKON) stopped working for two weeks in response to high prices including cement. At the time the ministry tightened its rules on exporting cement and clinker. This followed the start of an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour by the regulator Rekabat Kurumu into nine cement producers in the first half of that year. Around the same time Türk Çimento, the Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association, had also been warning about growing raw material and energy costs. It noted that declining domestic sales between 2017 and 2019 had encouraged its members to focus on export markets more. All of this was overshadowed in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and global energy prices spiked. Türk Çimento then warned of the trouble that high coal prices were causing the sector.
Graph 1: Domestic and export cement sales in Türkiye, January – September, 2017 – 2022. Source: Türk Çimento.
Graph 1 above shows that the trend towards exports that Türk Çimento pointed out in mid-2021 has continued. Domestic sales fell to a low of 33.2Mt in 2019, recovered to 2021 and dropped somewhat so far in 2022. As an aside, that decline in domestic sales from 2017 to 2019 was the first the local cement industry had experienced a fall in sales since at least 2002. Exports fell year-on-year in 2018 but have increased steadily since then to 14.6Mt in the first nine months of 2022. Exports represented 10% of total sales in 2017. So far in 2022 they have accounted for 27% of total sales. Türk Çimento’s take on the picture so far in 2022 is that it expects the domestic market to decline by 10% in 2022 in all regions of the country principally due to high commodity prices. Cement exports are expected to increase but clinker exports to decrease.
Commercially, Türkiye-based cement producers have reacted to high energy prices by upping their own product prices in turn. OYAK Çimento, for example, reported significant rises year-on-year in sales revenue and earnings in the first nine months of 2022. Net sales grew by 160% year-on-year to Euro403m and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 202% to Euro106m. Akçansa and Çimsa reported a similar situation.
Despite the high energy costs, both investment and merger and acquisition activity has continued in the cement sector in 2022. In August 2022 Fernas Group completed its purchase of two integrated cement plants, a grinding plant and associated ready-mix concrete assets from Çimsa Çimento for US$110m. Later in the year, in November 2022, Safi Çimento acquired Sancim Bilecik Çimento’s integrated plant from Aşkale Çimento. Various upgrade projects to cement plants were also reported including projects at KÇS Kipaş Çimento’s Kahramanmaraş plant, Nuh Çimento’s Hereke cement plant, MEDCEM’s Silifke plant and OYAK Çimento’s Ünye plant.
Recent reporting by the Economist newspaper suggests that the government is targeting the domestic housing sector in response to higher than inflation price rises even compared to Türkiye’s high consumer price inflation rate. The next general election in June 2023 may also be encouraging legislators to look at the accommodation needs of their constituents. Whether this is connected to the Ministry of Trade’s recent decision is unknown. Cement producers have followed the money to lucrative export markets in recent years. How far the government is willing to intervene in this strategy could mark a change in direction for the sector.