September 2024
Switzerland: Holcim plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based software at 100 production plants by 2028. The company will use the technology for predictive maintenance, in order to increase operational efficiency and resilience. It has installed the system at 45 plants to date. C3 AI is providing its predictive software products, and the group is also piloting generative AI techniques.
Holcim CEO Miljan Gutovic said "AI is a transformative technology that will revolutionise our industry. Already widely embedded across Holcim, AI catalyses operational efficiency and enhances customer service.”
Shree Cement achieves 1GW captive power capacity 27 June 2024
India: Shree Cement says that it has reached 1GW captive power capacity across its plants, after commissioning a new 19.5MW solar power plant at a facility in Andhra Pradesh. Renewables account for 499MW (50%) of the total. Shree Cement says that its investments in renewables to date total US$479m. NBM & CW News has reported that the company has current planned new investments worth US$120m in renewables. This will cover 132MW-worth of solar, 36MW of wind and 34MW of waste heat recovery power capacity.
India: Adani Group plans to invest US$15.7bn in the current, 2025 financial year. The investments will support Adani Group’s expansion and diversification across various sectors, including cement. The group plans to reach 140Mt/yr in cement production capacity by the end of the 2028 financial year. The 2025 financial year will end on 31 March 2025.
Holcim completes acquisition of Cand-Landi Group 27 June 2024
Switzerland: Holcim has acquired recycling, ready-mix concrete and aggregates company Cand-Landi Group. The company employs 250 people across its operations in Western Switzerland. Holcim plans for Cand-Landi Group to supply alternative raw materials and fuels for use at its Eclépens plant. It says that the acquisition will increase its recycling capacity of construction and demolition materials by 100,000t/yr.
Holcim CEO Miljan Gutovic said "The acquisition of the Cand-Landi Group will advance decarbonisation and circularity in Switzerland, a lighthouse market for innovation at Holcim. I look forward to welcoming all 250 employees of the Cand-Landi Group and investing in our next chapter of growth together."
UAE: India-based UltraTech Cement has revised its former offer to acquire a 32% stake in RAK White Cement.The group told investors on 25 June 2024 that it is now seeking to acquire a 25% stake. The acceptance period for its previous offer elapsed on 24 June 2024.
Update on the UK, June 2024 26 June 2024
The Hillhead Quarrying, Construction and Recycling Show is in full flow this week, taking place near Buxton in Derbyshire. As one delegate marvelled on the panoramic minibus journey down to the quarry, “It’s like a music festival without the music and… other stuff.” Indeed. Of course what one doesn’t find at Glastonbury and the like is a near comprehensive range of suppliers, over 600 of them, to the industry all in one place… in a quarry! Where else can one get up close and see the new hydrogen-powered generators and excavating vehicles that are being piloted? The official attendance figures don’t get released until after the event but on the ground it looks as busy as ever. It’s truly the place to be this week.
The show gives us a reason to take a look at the UK cement sector. Like many other countries around the world it is an election year in the UK, with a General Election scheduled for 4 July 2024. The result of this should determine the next Prime Minister and the ruling party. So, naturally, the MPA, the trade association for the aggregates, asphalt, cement, concrete, dimension stone, lime, mortar and industrial sand industries, is taking the opportunity to remind the political parties what its priorities are. The quick version is: support for decarbonisation; a streamlined planning system; and better delivery of projects. This sounds familiar to priorities in other countries but one British spin on this includes the UK’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).
Graph 1: Domestic cement sales and imports in the UK, 2017 – 2022. Source: MPA.
Edwin Trout’s feature on the UK cement sector in the June 2024 issue of Global Cement Magazine presents a good overview of the last 12 months. The general UK economy has faced shocks in recent years such as Brexit, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. However, this has been further compounded by a downturn and high interest rates since late 2022 when the then Prime Minister Liz Truss caused market turbulence in the wake of a badly received government financial statement. As Trout relates, sales of heavy building materials have been in relative decline since mid-2022 with more of the same expected in 2024. Production of cement in 2023 is currently uncertain given the reporting time lag from the MPA but up until 2022 domestic cement sales fell somewhat but imports grew. This has created a situation where overall cement sales in 2022 were 12Mt, not far behind the annual level in the early 2000s. However, the share of imports has nearly doubled since then. More recent MPA data on mortar and ready-mixed concrete sales throughout the first nine months of 2023 suggest that market activity has decreased and poor weather at the start of 2024 looks set to have made this worse.
Despite the apparent slowdown in building materials sales the cement companies have been conducting smaller-scale maintenance and upgrade projects at their facilities and supply chain schemes such as the cement storage unit for deep sea shipping lines that Aggregate Industries said in February 2024 it was going to build at the Port of Southampton. The news the cement companies want to show off has been a steady stream of information about ongoing decarbonisation projects in the cement sector. C-Capture started a carbon capture trial at Heidelberg Materials’ Ketton cement works in Rutland in May 2024, Capsol Technologies said in March 2024 that it had been selected to conduct a study on its carbon capture technology at Aggregate Industries Cauldon cement plant in Staffordshire, Heidelberg Materials' Ribblesdale cement plant in Lancashire announced in March 2024 that it was taking part in a study to assess the use of ammonia as a hydrogen source for fuelling cement kilns and Heidelberg Materials awarded Japan-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) a front end engineering design contract for a carbon capture installation at its Padeswood cement plant in Flintshire in February 2024. Finally, on the divestment front, CRH completed the sale of its UK-based lime business to SigmaRoc for €155m in March 2024. The business operates from sites in Tunstead and Hindlow with five permitted lime kilns.
That’s it for this short recap on the UK for now. For a longer look at the UK cement sector read Edwin Trout’s feature in June 2024 issue of Global Cement Magazine.
Hillhead 2024 runs until 27 June 2024
Andrew Boileau appointed as managing director of MQP 26 June 2024
UK: MQP (Midland Quarry Products) has appointed Andrew Boileau as its managing director. He succeeds Rick Green, who has retired after a 40-year career in the industry, taking responsibility for MQP’s three quarries and 10 asphalt plants located across the Midlands. MQP is a subsidiary of Heidelberg Materials.
Boileau previously worked as the Programme Director for STARK Building Materials. He has also held various senior roles at Saint-Gobain, including Managing Director of Gibbs and Dandy.
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development loans Çimsa US$26.7m for decarbonisation projects 26 June 2024
Türkiye: Çimsa has secured a US$26.7m loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The bank says that the loans will finance decarbonisation projects, including the establishment of waste heat recovery (WHR) and solar power units.
Çimsa CEO Umut Zenar said, "We are determined to advance our sustainability goals and take important steps in our energy efficiency and decarbonisation efforts. This collaboration with the EBRD represents a significant milestone in our journey towards a greener future. We are proud to be the first cement company in Türkiye to receive this type of financing from the EBRD, reflecting our commitment to leading the industry in sustainability initiatives.”
The EBRD expects Türkiye to require US$10bn worth of investments up to 2030 to be on track for its target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2053.
Princeton University team develops bio-based cement with increased toughness and ductility 26 June 2024
US: A team at the University of Princeton has developed a new alternative cement using oyster shells. The team says that the oyster shells provide calcium carbonate in the form of aragonite, along with biopolymers. Together, these raise the resulting cement’s crack resistance by 19% and its ductility by 17% compared with ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
Team leader Reza Moini said “Our bio-inspired approach is not to simply mimic nature’s microstructure, but to learn from the underlying principles and use that to inform the engineering of human-made materials. One of the key mechanisms that makes a nacreous shell tough is the sliding of the tablet at the nanometer level. Here, we focus on the mechanism of tablet sliding by engineering the built-in tabulated structure of cement paste in balance with the properties of the polymer and the interface between them. In other words, we intentionally engineer defects in the brittle materials as a way to make them stronger by design.“
JK Cement inaugurates Prayagraj grinding plant 26 June 2024
India: JK Cement has inaugurated its 2Mt/yr Prayagraj grinding plant in Uttar Pradesh. The Economic Times newspaper has reported that the plant raises JK Cement’s cement production capacity by 9% to 24Mt/yr.