September 2024
Gonzalo Mendoza wins Cemex’s Marcelo Zambrano Scholarship 07 September 2020
Mexico: Cemex has announced the awarding by its Scholarship Council of the Marcelo Zambrano Scholarship to architect Gonzalo Mendoza. The group says that the funding will support Mendoza through his post-graduate study abroad at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, UK.
Cemex said Scholarship Council member Jimena Hogrebe said, "Choosing a profile like Gonzalo's, due to his experience and interests, is important today because we are facing global situations in which it seems essential to have critical professionals who dare to propose new possibilities for architecture."
Cemex announces virtual financial and business strategy event with Fernando González 04 September 2020
Mexico: Cemex has announced that its chief executive officer (CEO), Fernando González, will host a ‘virtual conversation,’ in which he will discuss aspects of the group’s financial and business strategy and its operation resilience post-Covid-19 performance enhancement programme, on 10 September 2020. The company says that chief financial officer (CFO) Maher Al-Haffar and strategic planning and business development executive vice president José González will also be on hand to answer questions.
India: The Odisha State Level Single Window Clearance Authority (SLSWCA) has approved two cement and slag grinding plant projects in Odisha. It has granted JSW Cement permission for an upgrade to its upcoming 1.2Mt/yr Kalinga Nagar, Odisha slag cement grinding plant that will increase the finished plant’s capacity to 2.4Mt/yr at an additional investment cost of US$359,000. JSW Cement restarted work on the facility, which will grind Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), in September 2018 after suspending the project due to leasing issues in 2016.
Sagar Cements subsidiary Jajpur Cements has also received clearance from the SLSWCA for the construction of a 1.5Mt/yr grinding plant on the site of the existing 0.5Mt/yr Jajpur Cements grinding plant in the Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex in Jajpur District, Odisha. The project, valued by the company at US$44m, is scheduled for completion in March 2021. Sagar Cements acquired Jajpur Cements on 7 May 2019 for US$16m.
Colombia: Argos has supplied 220,000t of cement and 765,000m3 of ready-mixed concrete to the site of the 8500m-long Túnel de La Línea road tunnel in Quindío and Tolima Departments.
Colombia regional vice president Tomás Restrepo said, “We are proud to have participated as allies in the construction of this mega-work that represents a great milestone for the infrastructure of our country and Latin America. This was a project that represented great logistical and technical challenges that Argos has faced with commitment. We are sure that this strategic work of interconnection will contribute enormously to the progress of Colombia and its people. This reflects our high purpose to continue contributing to the construction of dreams that drive development and transform lives"
Czech Republic achieves record cement production in 2019 03 September 2020
Czech Republic: Domestic cement production was 4.57Mt in 2019, up by 3.2% year-on-year from 4.43Mt in 2018. CTK Business News has reported a corresponding increase in domestic sales, up by 1.5% to 3.84Mt from 3.78Mt, and exports, up by 1.9% to 761,000t from 747,000t. Slovakia received 380,000t (50%), Germany received 221,000t (29%), Austria received 114,000t (15%) and Poland received 68,500t (9%). Imports fell by 15% to 490,000t, of which Slovakia supplied 245,000t (50%), Poland supplied 122,000t (25%), Germany supplied 98,000t (20%) and Austria supplied 39,200t (8%).
GM Iron & Steel Company reveals 0.4Mt/yr Dhenkanal slag cement grinding plant plans 03 September 2020
India: GM Iron & Steel Company Limited has published plans for the construction of a 0.4Mt/yr slag cement grinding plant in Dhenkanal, Odisha. United News of India has reported that the plant is part of an upcoming construction materials complex, including a 46MW captive power plant, that will cost US$82.7m, according to the company.
Schenck Process launches CONiQ Control 03 September 2020
Germany: Schenck Process has launched CONiQ Control, a control and automation system “with many options for use in industrial measuring, weighing and automation technology in the cement industry,” according to the company. It says that the product “standardises the use of a common controller platform for a wide variety of processes” through a Reddot Intuitive Design Award 2019-winning web-based interface.
Cementa buys new biogas Volvo truck 03 September 2020
Sweden: Cementa says that it has added a second biogas-powered Volvo FH460 LGB truck to its logistics fleet. Based at the 0.6Mt/yr Skövde cement plant in Västergötland, the company says that the truck will supply customers in western Sweden with cement. Finland-based Gasum will fuel the trucks with biogas, which it says emits 90% less nitrous oxides (NOx) than diesel.
Shree Cement to sponsor East Bengal Kolkata 03 September 2020
India: Shree Cement has signed a sponsorship deal with East Bengal Kolkata, one of two Kolkata, West Bengal-based football teams that compete in the I-League, the top flight of Indian football. The Economic Times newspaper has reported that the company has promised to let the club retain its ‘iconic red-and-yellow jersey’ and crest.
Will it make Greta happy? 02 September 2020
It’s back to work for many in Europe this week following the summer break and so too for the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) with the release of its 2050 Climate Ambition mission statement. Talk about setting the bar high for the rest of us struggling to remember how to log into our computers! The short version is that the association aspires to deliver society with carbon neutral concrete by 2050. The actual detail will be published in the second half of 2021.
What it does say is that, “detailed actions and milestones” will be set out in the forthcoming roadmap. This will include, “working across the built environment value chain to deliver the vision of carbon neutral concrete in a circular economy, whole life context.” This focus on concrete and end-product life-cycles looks likely to be the wriggle room cement and building materials producers need to actually meet the goal. To put it another way, as the press release helpfully reminds us, things that people need are made out of concrete. So, until a viable alternative to clinker turns up, the cost in CO2 emissions needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. At the same time everyone needs to be continually told how much they need cementitious products: don’t think of the CO2 released to build your new house. Rather: think of the CO2 saved annually by living in a well-constructed dwelling, as opposed to the alternatives, and consider what happens to the concrete once the structure is demolished.
A few ideas of what strategies the roadmap may use to reach its target are revealed. This is fairly standard current thinking including: cutting direct energy-related emissions; increasing co-processing; increased renewable electricity usage; reducing process emissions through new technologies and deployment of carbon capture at scale; reducing the content of both clinker in cement and cement in concrete; more efficient use of concrete in construction; reprocessing concrete from construction and demolition waste to produce recycled aggregates; and quantifying and enhancing the level of CO2 uptake of concrete through recarbonation in a circular economy, whole life context.
It’s early days yet, with the roadmap not due for at least a year, but deploying carbon capture methods at scale will be expensive and difficult. Whatever target the GCCA sets here will be keenly observed, especially so given that the association is a global concern. So far carbon capture in the cement industry has generally been linked to regions with market or legislative encouragement. How, for example, would a producer in a country with low environmental restrictions react to its peers trying to get it to make cement production more expensive? The rest of the points seems more tangible at the moment but will require lots of work to realise. They are also interlinked and this reinforces the need for someone to continually remind society about the life cycle of concrete. Taking concrete recycling into the mainstream is great but the world has to be told that it is happening.
This last point brings us to the perceived success of the GCCA’s ambitions: will a successfully realised strategy to make carbon neutral concrete by 2050 be enough to make environmental activists like Greta Thunberg happy? Probably not. Pure environmentalists seem unlikely to accept whole lifecycle thinking while limestone decomposition in kilns continues without capture or cessation. Even if the cement and concrete industries hit the target they will have to shake off the taint that the achievement was at least partly down to sneaky carbon accounting. Suddenly saying that concrete buildings have been sucking up CO2 all along and that the industry is now, say, 20% closer to its carbon neutral target may feel like cheating to some observers. Step forward a global association to say otherwise. The need for industry associations making the case for the sector’s aspirations seems more essential than ever.