Displaying items by tag: Ambuja

India: Ambuja Cements and ACC, LafargeHolcim’s local subsidiaries, have started supplying oxygen concentrators, cylinders and generating plants in various locations to help the government as it tackles a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

In Rajasthan, Ambuja Cements is setting up an oxygen generating plant at the JLN Hospital in Nagaur with a capacity of 40 - 50m³, with daily refilling of around 175 - 200 cylinders. The process to set up the oxygen plant has commenced and should be ready around the end of May 2021. In addition to setting up the plant, Ambuja Cements and ACC, have placed an order to procure 100 oxygen concentrators, each with a capacity of 10l/minute. These will be supplied to communities of three districts in Rajasthan - Bundi, Pali and Nagaur - where cement plant of both companies are located at Lakheri, Rabriyawas and Mundwa.

In Gujarat Ambuja Cements has installed an oxygen generating plant at Ambujanagar Multi-Specialty Hospital. The oxygen generating unit has a capacity of 35 - 40 cylinders/day at the flow rate of 10Nm3/hr and has been set up in two weeks.

Neeraj Akhoury, the chief executive officer of LafargeHolcim India, said “Community well-being has always been our priority, and it takes precedence as India bravely fights the second wave of the pandemic. In the current situation, oxygen supply is critical to combat the effects of Covid-19 and through setting up an oxygen generating plant, we aim to extend our support to the community members and local authorities.”

Other similar schemes to supply oxygen and related equipment are being prepared in Dehli, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, according to the Press Trust of India.

India: Ambuja Cement, part of LafargeHolcim, reported a 71% jump year-on-year in its consolidated net profit to US$127.9m during the first quarter of 2021, compared to a profit of US$74.8m in the same period of 2020. Managing Director Neeraj Akhoury said, "Indian demand growth has been strong in the last quarter, which has also helped the sales volume growth and commercial performance.”
Akhoury added that, despite strong and continuing headwinds with regards to input prices, including coal, petcoke and diesel, the company had made significant progress on efficiency improvement, which had a positive impact on cost evolution.

India: Ambuja Cement has successfully sent two cement shipments to their destinations using biofuel-powered ships. Two of the company’s cement carriers delivered cement in India while running using biofuel derived from soya extract.

The biodiesel blend (B20) was in compliance with International Maritime Organisation sulphur content requirements and met International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) levels in terms of flash point requirements. No increase of NOx was observed with biodiesel blend as compared to low sulphur high-speed diesel (LSHSD), rather the emission level was found to be less. The reduction in CO₂ was found to be around 7% and the total life cycle reduction of CO₂ by life cycle analysis was measured to be around 21%, as the biodiesel from soya extract had a reduction of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions by 70%.

Following the successful initiative, the Directorate General of Shipping has approved biofuels trials for the rest of Ambuja Cement’s fleet, which are mainly deployed on the Indian coastal route.

India: Ambuja Cement, part of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim, plans to commission its upcoming Mundwa cement plant in Rajasthan by September 2021. The plant will have a total capacity of 5Mt/yr, consisting of 3Mt/yr of integrated and 2.0Mt/yr of grinding capacity. The Hindu newspaper has reported that the company aims to achieve 50Mt/yr total installed capacity in the medium term. It said that it is evaluating possible plant upgrades at Bhatapara in Chhattisgarh and Maratha in Maharashtra.

India: ACC’s audit committee and board of directors have approved the renewal of the company’s master supply agreement with Ambuja Cements from 2 May 2021 to 2 May 2024. The agreement will continue on its current terms.

India: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Ambuja Cement has begun a trial of bio-diesel fuel blends for its shipping fleet. It says that the fuel change will reduce the fleet’s CO₂ emissions by 25%.

Managing Director and chief executive officer Neeraj Akhoury said, “With the introduction of bio-diesel blends, we are significantly contributing towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by introducing a suitable alternate green fuel that helps achieve our parent, LafargeHolcim’s, sustainability vision of ‘net zero pledge 2030’.”

India: ACC and Ambuja Cements have chosen US-based Blue Yonder to improve their supply chain management. Both subsidiaries of LafargeHolcim are using Blue Yonder’s Luminate Planning software product to help improve sales and operational planning.

"We chose Blue Yonder as our partner for supply chain management digitalisation because Luminate Planning will give us greater visibility into our combined supply chains," said Rajeev Mehta, chief logistics officer, ACC and Ambuja Cement. "The objective of this project is to improve the customer experience and service levels, yet profitably grow by tapping into the synergies of our supply chains, thus maximising capacity utilisation and minimising overall cost."

India: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has raided the offices of LafargeHolcim subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cement and Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech Cement as part of an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour, according to the Press Trust of India. ACC said it, "is of the firm view that it has acted and continues to act in compliance with competition laws and we are fully cooperating with the investigation and providing all necessary information to the authorities."

India: Ambuja Cement’s profit in the first nine months of 2020 was US$176m, up by 21% year-on-year from US$146m in the first nine months of 2019. It revenues dropped by 7.8% to US$1.07bn from US$1.16bn, primarily due to the impacts of the Coronavirus outbreak. It said that this was likely to continue to affect results into the fourth quarter of 2020.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has warned local cement producers to rein in their more outlandish claims. In a letter reported upon by the Economic Times newspaper this week, the government department has accused some manufacturers of making both objective and subjective claims about their products that strained credulity and didn’t fit the corresponding official standards. One industry source from the newspaper blamed the crackdown on some producers claiming that their cement products helped protect people from Covid-19! In their view the bureau was now over-enforcing its rules in retaliation. Given the severity of the outbreak in India - it has the second highest number of reported cases in the world this week - the response of the authorities is understandable to say the least.

The distinction between objective and subjective exaggeration that the BIS makes it worth looking at in more detail. For example, objective or supposedly fact-based claims the BIS cited included: ‘Protect Steel in Concrete’; ‘Protect Concrete from Corrosion’; ‘Corrosion Resistant’; ‘Weather Proof’; and ‘Damp Proof.’ Then, there were subjective, or more emotionally evocative, claims along the lines of ‘strong’ or ‘high performance.’ The BIS then outlines the specific ways in which objective and subjective assertions can be used. Objective claims should be avoided on marketing and packaging material. Subjective claims should, “explicitly indicate that such claims are not covered under the scope of BIS licence granted to them and the responsibility of such claims lies with them.”

Marketing is a big part of standing out in the crowded Indian cement market with producers sponsoring major sports teams. This might seem odd to readers elsewhere in the world but it demonstrates the target market, the importance of cement as a commodity to the general public and the power of brand awareness. Amubja Cement’s logo of a man with a Charles Atlas style physique cuddling a building sums up the message they want to convey: strength. No wonder producers are wary of the BIS wading in.

Standards also appeared in another news story this week with the announcement that Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) had obtained the first cement product carbon footprint label issued by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in the country. Its products will be marked with carbon footprint labels from the fourth quarter of 2020.

This shows a general trend in cement products towards showing sustainability credentials from putting environmental footprint data in front of specifiers for large projects towards making it a more basic retail selling point. Lots of other cement producers around the world have done and/or are doing similar things, from the dedicated slag cement manufacturers to the larger producers routinely releasing and promoting new low-CO₂ products. To pick one example from many, in July 2020 LafargeHolcim France introduced ‘360Score CO₂ emissions reduction ratings’ to its bagged cement range. The score, between ’A’ and ’D,’ corresponds to the factor of CO₂ compared to CEM-I Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), with ‘A’ products producing less CO₂ than ‘D’ products in their overall creation.

To look at an older example of the need for standards generally, building collapses in Nigeria appeared to increase post-2000, with the misuse of lower-grade cements blamed for the situation. The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) took action in 2014, local producers introduced higher strength cements and the problem was reduced. Given the intangible nature of measuring sustainability in cement products there is a need for reliable standards. Unlike performance metrics, such as a strength or durability, the CO₂ footprint of a cement product will generally remain utterly intangible for most end-users. The effects of CO₂ emissions are continually analysed and debated, but the negative climate effects of cement products are more akin to someone else’s house flooding on the other side of the world 50 years later, than one’s own house falling down a decade later due to using the wrong strength cement. So, some form of trustworthy enforcement for sustainability standards is crucial. Standards may represent ‘boring’ bureaucratic red tape at its most officious but we need them. In India and elsewhere though, the debate on enforcement continues.