November 2024

Qatar: Trial operations have commenced by the Qatar National Cement Company (QNCC) on its USD6m calcium carbonate plant at Umm-Bab in southern Qatar. QNCC has signed an agreement with the Stream Industrial Engineering Company to build the plant on a turn-key basis. The plant will be specialised in the production of calcium carbonate for use in water treatment operations and is expected to have a production capacity of 250t/day.

QNCC general manager Mohamed Ali al-Sulaiti commented, "There is an agreement with Kahramaa to buy the calcium carbonate for 25 years. For the plant, Ras Girtas power station at Ras Laffan will be one of the supporting stations." He added "QNCC is carefully growing and expanding to play its national role in supporting the infrastructure development in the state, especially after Qatar won the bid for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup." Al-Sulaiti further stated that the company has set up two new mills with a planned capacity of 130t/h.

Mexico: Indebted Mexican cement maker Cemex has cancelled its plans to sell USD650m in bonds as investors are worried about a global economic slowdown. Struggling with limited cash flow and a weak US market, Cemex aimed to raise money to help pay USD1.2bn in debt amortisations by the end of 2013 before being hit with an USD8bn payments bottleneck in 2014.

"Given market volatility and unfavourable performance of markets today, Cemex has decided to not pursue the transaction," the company said in a statement.

France: Lafarge announced new CO₂ targets in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund on 23 June 2011.Key areas include a 33% reduction of CO₂ emissions per ton of cement produced by the end of 2020 compared with 1990 levels and a commitment to develop innovative solutions for sustainable construction by 2015. It is anticipated that Lafarge will emit an average of 518kg of CO₂ per ton of cement produced in 2020, around 250kg less than in 1990.

New Zealand: Contractors are being asked to register their interest in building a USD400m cement plant near Weston and a shipping terminal at Timaru's port on behalf of Holcim New Zealand. Holcim is still seeking final approval for the projects. Expressions of interest close on 29 July 2011. On 28 June 2011 Holcim New Zealand posted a message on its website inviting contractors to register their interest. Capital projects manager Ken Cowie stated that the marketplace needs to be aware of what will be required if the company's parent board in Switzerland approves the project.

"Getting some preliminary information from the marketplace now would help us get the project under way in a timely manner if the Holcim Ltd board approves it later this year," said Cowie. "It's also about getting an indication of which contractors are in the marketplace with suitable qualifications and experience to undertake the various aspects of work that will be required."

The tentative timetable to construct the plant on a 40ha site indicates that, subject to board approval, site preparation could start in late 2011, equipment could be ordered in late 2011 and early 2012 and the pouring of foundations could take place in the third quarter of 2012. At the peak of construction, almost 500 people would be employed. Commissioning of the plant would be in early 2014 with production starting by the middle of that year. Actual dates for work on the project would depend on if and when approval is received.

The decision to call for expressions of interest from contractors followed the executive committee of parent company Holcim Ltd in may recommending the proposal go forward to its board for a decision. The general scope of works outlined in the expressions of interest document includes the Weston cement plant, associated quarries and pits and a new clinker and cement shipping terminal at Timaru.

The main raw material quarries and pits, limestone, tuff and siltstone were immediately next to the plant site and silica sand would be trucked from a pit near Windsor. Coal to fuel a kiln would be trucked from an open cast pit at Ngapara. KiwiRail would reconstruct the branch line from the South Island main trunk line at Waiareka to the plant to haul cement to Timaru.

"Aspects of the work, such as cement plant mechanical and electrical equipment, would require the involvement of specialist international suppliers and we've been in discussion with a number of these companies about our potential requirements since late 2010," said Cowie.

Holcim New Zealand said it was looking for contractors who had an excellent record of working collaboratively with both the client and other contractors to successfully complete 'a world-class project.' Completing the project with the least possible impact on the environment was also a project goal.

Holcim New Zealand would have overall management of the project and contract out a number of packages of work related to quarry operations, construction of the plant and the Timaru shipping terminal. Following a review of applications, selected contractors will be provided with detailed specifications and drawings and invited to submit bids for the various packages of work.

Once the Weston plant is completed Holcim will close its 50 year old cement factory near Westport in the West Coast region. The Buller District Mayor, Pat McManus, stated that the district's coal industry should fill the gap in the economy. Cowie stated that the West Coast facility will remain open for about three years while the new plant is built.

Kazakhstan: HeidelbergCement plans to start production at a Euro200m cement plant in the western region of Mangistau in 2013 according to a statement made by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Industry and New Technologies on 27 June 2011. The plant will have an initial production capacity of 1Mt/yr of cement with the possibility of doubling its capacity in the future, the Ministry said.

HeidelbergCement has invested Euro70m in infrastructure around the plant, including roads, railway and electricity lines and living quarters for employees. The German cement company entered Kazakhstan in 2005 by purchasing Bukhtarma Cement Company, one of the leading cement producers in the country.

China: CNBM was China's biggest cement producer in 2010 followed by Anhui Conch and Jidong according to newly-released data from OneStone Research.

In China the top 10 cement producers comprised 817.4Mt/yr (34%) of a cement capacity of 2.41Bnt/yr. The market leader with a capacity of 200Mt/yr (8.3%) was CNBM, followed by Anhui Conch with 150Mt/yr (6.2%) and Jidong with 89Mt/yr (3.7%). Next places in the ranking were taken by Sinoma Cement, Shanshui, Huaxin, CRC, Tianrui, TCC (China) and Hongshi.

Companies in the top 11 – 20 rankings included BBMG, Jinyu Group, Lafarge, Yatai and Asia Cement, combining about 9.5% of China's cement capacity. In total the top 20 companies comprised 43.5% of the national capacity.

The only foreign producer within the top 10 besides Holcim (which hold a 39.9% participation in Huaxin) was Taiwan Cement Corp. (TCC) Other major foreign cement producers in China include Lafarge, CRH, HeidelbergCement, Asia Cement Corp., Taiheiyo, Italcementi, Cimpor and Cemex.

France/Italy/Turkey: French cement maker Ciments Français has said that it will sell its 51% stake in Turkish Afyon Çimento Sanayi TAS. The French company, part of the Italcementi group, has mandated Mediobanca to be its financial adviser in assessing and carrying out the potential sale of its stake.

In February 2011 Ciments Français started divesting assets in Turkey with the sale of Set Group Holding to diversified Turkish group Limak Holding. After the latest strategic move in Turkey, Mediobanca does not rule out that Italcementi may leave markets on which it has minor presence, such as China, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia.

US: A federal appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for 11 October 2011 in pending litigation challenging EPA's air toxics and criteria pollutant rules for the Portland cement industry, giving activists a chance to argue for the inclusion of greenhouse gas (GHG) limits in the criteria pollutant rule and for industry to highlight what it says are major flaws in both rules.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for the suits challenging EPA's new source performance standards (NSPS) for criteria pollutants and a maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for air toxin emissions.

The court recently granted the cement industry's request to sever and hold in abeyance several aspects of its pending lawsuits challenging key provisions of the two rules, following an agency decision to issue a partial denial and partial granting of several petitions for administrative reconsideration of the rules. The oral arguments will focus on suits challenging other provisions of the two rules. For example, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) and other industry petitioners will likely ask the court to vacate both rules due to what they say are numerous faults and errors in the final versions.

In the fight over the NSPS rule, industry filed a brief on 16 May 2011 taking issue with, among other things, the rule's new limits on particulate matter (PM) emissions, particularly its limit of 4.5g (0.01lb) of PM per tonne of clinker. Producers argue that the EPA 'simply adopted' the same PM limit that it set for the air toxins rule, at odds with Clean Air Act requirements for setting NSPS.

In their brief in the MACT suit (16 May 2011), the producers argue that the EPA failed to address the overlap between the cement rule and a recent EPA emissions rule for commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI). On 21 March 2011 the EPA issued a memo trying to clarify the number of cement facilities that would be subject to the final CISWI rule but the producers said that the memo did not resolve their concerns and sought to have the question addressed through an administrative reconsideration of the rule. This request was subsequently denied by the EPA.

The PCA and others in the industry have also continued to express concerns over whether some cement kilns burning alternative fuels that may fall under a recent final EPA rule defining non-hazardous solid waste would fall under the cement MACT or under the CISWI rule issued in February 2011 and how that would impact on the MACT baseline emissions limits that the agency used when it developed the cement air toxins regulation.

The rules were amendments to existing NSPS and MACT standards for the sector and industry only wants the court to vacate the 2010 amendments and not the rules that were in place prior to the new rules. If the court vacates the amendments, the rules could revert to the older regulations, a cement NSPS set in 1988 and the MACT rules from 2006.

Environmentalists meanwhile will likely use the oral arguments to push their legal fight that is trying to have the court force the EPA to... ...include GHG limits in the cement NSPS. Environmentalists have filed briefs in the cement litigation arguing that GHGs meet the EPA's two-part criteria for determining whether to regulate new pollutants under NSPS. When the EPA issued the cement NSPS alongside an air toxins rule for the sector in September 2011 it said that CO2 standards 'may be appropriate' for the sector, but chose not to include GHG limits in the final rules, because it had not included GHG limits in the proposed version of the rule. The agency said that it needed, "additional information on site-specific factors that affect performance of these controls, where they are currently applied, and control costs," for reducing CO2 from the Portland cement industry. This is a point that environmentalists are disputing.

In a brief issued on 16 May 2011 Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and others argue that the EPA's decision not to include GHG limits in the NSPS while saying such limits 'may be appropriate' for future action 'is particularly egregious' given that the EPA's findings in the proposed and final versions of the rule point toward inclusion of CO2 standards and that the agency has already determined that CO2 negatively affects public health.

Vietnam: According to figures released by the government's General Statistics Office, cement producers in Vietnam are estimated to have made 18.7Mt of cement in the first four months of 2011, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%. In April 2011 the country's cement output was estimated at 5.5Mt, up by 12.1% on the year.

Slovakia: The Antitrust Office has cleared the takeover of Vychodoslovenske Stavebne Hmoty (VSH) by Holcim Slovensko provided that Holcim sells its terminal in Vlkanova in Banska Bystrica County to an independent buyer linked neither to the companies nor to their groups. The watchdog conditioned the transaction in this way because it posed threats to the economic competition on the relevant market specialised in production and sale of grey cement and several local ready-mixed concrete markets.

Holcim, therefore, has proposed to sell the terminal. The regulator maintains that the new owner must be experienced and capable of preserving and developing the existing business and it must be able to expose Holcim to efficient competition after it takes over VSH. The decision on a suitable owner will be made by the watchdog. The terminal supplies cement made in the plant in Rohoznik to customers in the entire county.