Displaying items by tag: Austria

Austria: RHI Magnesita has launched Ankral Low Carbon, a 14% reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) refractory brick. Instead of raw magnesite, Ankral Low Carbon bricks contain used refractory bricks as a dead burned magnesia (DBM) source.

The company says, “Adaption of production cycles is one of four ways in which RHI Magnesita is contributing to environmental sustainability, alongside shortening transportation routes, increasing of energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint of raw material.”

Austria: Waste processing specialist Lindner has celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for its new headquarters. The company says that the 45,000m² site will also encompass a new “state-of-the-art waste processing technology production plant.” It says that the facility will enable it to better serve the industries that depend on its expertise, including the cement sector. “That’s why it is so important to us to constantly expand this know-how, develop new solutions and systematically prepare and pass on the knowledge gained,” it added.

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%).

Austria: RHI Magnesita’s revenue from its cement and lime market fell by 12.1% year-on-year to Euro160m in the first half of 2020 from Euro182m in the same period of 2019. It said that the segment performed well in the first quarter of 2020 as producers maintained and repaired plants. Second quarter performance was negatively affected by coronavirus, “with a sharp contraction in demand in key end-markets, leading to reduced production and some temporary closures of cement plants in certain regions.” The group forecasts that its cement and lime segment will continue to follow the trend of the second quarter of 2020 although government stimulus projects, especially for infrastructure projects, may improve the situation.

Egypt: Austria-based Mondi Group subsidiary Mondi Paper Bags has announced its acquisition of two cement bag plants, the Helwan Cement bag plant and InterCement bag plant, with a combined capacity of 60m – 80m bags/yr. As a result, Mondi Paper Bags will now meet the bagging needs of both cement producers.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Claudio Fedalto said, “These collaborations will offer Helwan and InterCement access to our latest innovations, industry expertise and our strong plant network and customer service in the Middle East. Thanks to Mondi’s vertical integration, our partners will further benefit from our high quality kraft paper.”

Helwan Cement owner Suez Cement managing director Jose Maria Magrina said, “We are delighted to continue our relationship with a reputable and reliable global paper bags supplier like Mondi, while we can focus on our core operations, the production of grey cement and ready-mix.” InterCement subsidiary Amreyah Cement legal and administration director Paulo Dall’Aqua added, “Building sustainable partnerships is InterCement’s tagline, and it is exactly what this deal represents.”

Hydrogen and its use in cement production has been adding a dash of colour to the industry news in recent weeks. Last week, Lafarge Zementwerke, OMV, Verbund and Borealis signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to plan and build a full-scale unit at a cement plant in Austria to capture CO₂ and process it with hydrogen into synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals. This week, Air Products and ThyssenKrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers (TUCE) signed a strategic agreement to work together in ‘key regions’ to develop projects supplying green hydrogen. Both of these developments follow the awarding of UK government funding in February 2020 to support a pilot project into studying a mix of hydrogen and biomass fuels at Hanson Cement’s Ribblesdale integrated plant.

As the title of this column suggests there is an environmental colour code to describe how hydrogen is made for industrial use. This is a bit more codified than when grey cement gets called ‘green’ but it pays to remember what the energy source is. So-called ‘green’ hydrogen is produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric or solar, ‘Grey’ hydrogen is made from steam reforming using fossil fuels and ‘Blue’ hydrogen is similar to grey but has the CO₂ emissions from the fuels captured and stored/utilised. Price is seen as the main obstacle to wider uptake of hydrogen usage as a fuel in industry although this is changing as CO₂ pricing mounts in some jurisdictions and the connected supply chain is developed. A study by BloombergNEF from March 2020 forecasted that green hydrogen prices could become cheaper than natural gas by 2050 in Brazil, China, India, Germany and Scandinavia but it conceded that many barriers would have to be overcome to get there. For example, hydrogen has to be manufactured making it more expensive than fossil fuels without government policy support and its, “lower energy density also makes it more expensive to handle.”

The three recent examples with respect to the cement industry are interesting because they are all exploring different directions. The Lafarge partnership in Austria wants to use hydrogen to aid the utilisation side of its carbon capture at a cement plant. The industrial suppliers, meanwhile, are positioning themselves in the equipment space for the technology required to use hydrogen on industrial plants. Secondly, ThyssenKrupp has alkaline water electrolysis technology that it says it has used at over 600 projects and electrochemical plants worldwide. Air Products works with industrial gas production, storage and handling.

Finally, the Hanson project in the UK will actually look at using hydrogen as a partial replacement for natural gas in the kiln combustion system. A Cembureau position paper in mid-2019 identified that the challenges to explore in using hydrogen in cement production included seeing how its use might affect the physical aspects of the kiln system, the fuel mass flows, temperature profile, heat transfer and the safety considerations for the plant. Later that year a feasibility study by the Mineral Products Association (MPA), Verein Deutscher Zementwerke (VDZ) and Cinar for the UK government department that is funding the Hanson project concluded that a hydrogen flame’s high heat in a burner alone might not make it suitable for clinker formation. However, the study did think that it could be used with biomass to address some of that alternative fuel’s “calorific limitations” at high levels. Hence the demonstration of a mixture of both hydrogen and biomass.

That’s all on hydrogen but, finally, if you didn’t log into yesterday’s Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference you missed a treat. One highlight was consultant John Kline’s presentation on using drones to inspect refractory in some hard to reach places. Flying a camera straight into a (cool) pyro-processing line was reminiscent of a science fiction film! Global Cement has encountered the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles in quarry and stockpile surveys previously but this was a step beyond.

The proceedings pack - including video, presenter slides and delegate list - for the Virtual Global CemProducer 2 Conference 2020 is available to buy now

Austria: Lafarge Zementwerke, OMV, Verbund and Borealis have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the joint planning and construction of a full-scale plant by 2030 to capture CO₂ and process it into synthetic fuels, plastics or other chemicals. As part of the ‘Carbon2ProductAustria’ (C2PAT) project the companies intend to build the unit at the integrated Mannersdorf cement plant and capture all of the 0.7Mt/yr of CO₂ emitted.

"We are committed to leading the industry in reducing carbon emissions and shifting towards low-carbon construction. We have worked consistently and successfully on the reduction of the CO₂ footprint of our cement plants, products and solutions. Ultimately, CO₂-neutral cement production can only be possible with the implementation of breakthrough technologies, like carbon capture, which is why we have great expectations for the C2PAT project", said Lafarge’s local chief executive officer (CEO) José Antonio Primo.

The project aims to use hydrogen produced by Verbund to allow OMV to transform the captured CO₂ into a range of olefins, fuels and plastics. Borealis would then use some of these products as a feedstock to manufacture plastics. However, the companies say that, “taking the next steps towards a Zero CO₂ economy will require the right financial as well as favourable regulatory framework conditions. The success of C2PAT will largely depend on whether the right financial and regulatory framework conditions are created both at the European Union and Austrian national level.”

The joint project is designed in three phases. In phase one, the partners are currently evaluating and developing a joint strategy for project development, business modelling and process engineering. Based on the results of phase one, a cluster of industrial pilot plants in the Eastern part of Austria could be technically developed and built in the mid-2020s in phase two. Phase three entails building a full scale CO₂ capture and utilisation unit at a cement plant.

Lafarge Zementwerke is the Austrian subsidiary of building materials manufacturer LafargeHolcim. OMV produces and markets oil and gas, energy and other petrochemical products. Verbund is an Austrian-based electricity generator, with a focus on hydroelectric power. Borealis is a chemical company and a producer of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilisers.

Austria: Semperit has appointed Gabriele Schallegger as its chief financial officer (CFO) with effect from October 2020. Her term of office will end in October 2023.

Schallegger, aged 48 years, studied business administration in Graz and Exeter in the UK followed by several international management programmes, including one in St. Gallen, Switzerland. She most recently worked as the finance director of the Uncoated Fine Paper division at Mondi. Prior to this she held the position of CFO of Mondi Syktyvkar in Russia as well as finance director of the Kraft Paper Business division. She started her career in auditing and tax consulting at Arthur Andersen in Vienna. Subsequently she worked for the American pharmaceutical company Baxter and the Norwegian Orkla Foods Group, among others.

She succeeds Petra Preining, who had taken over the CFO role on an interim basis and will return to the supervisory board and audit committee of Semperit in October 2020.

Semperit develops, produces and sells a wide variety of products including conveyor belts, escalator handrails, construction profiles, cable car rings, products for railway superstructures, rubber products for the medical and industrial sectors and hydraulic and industrial hoses.

Austria: Four local fire brigades attended a fire at Lafarge Zement’s 1.2Mt/yr Mannersdorf plant in Lower Austria on 7 - 8 June 2020. ORF News has reported that the damage to the plant is extensive. A Lower Austria State Fire Service spokesperson said that none of the five employees on site when the fire broke out were harmed. The cause of the blaze remains unidentified.

Austria: RHI Magnesita has published a trading update in which it says that ‘the difficult market environment of the second half of 2019 continued into the first quarter of 2020, with limited impact from the COVID-19 outbreak.’ Demand remained consistent year-on-year, with its industrial division continuing to perform well, particularly in cement.” The company noted lower raw material costs due to ‘reduction in overall demand and uninterrupted supply from China.’ RHI Magnesita has increased its focus on cost management, temporarily closing one Mexican and three European plants, introducing short-time working and deferring at least Euro45.0m of capital expenditure in 2020.

In the second quarter 2020, RHI Magnesita said, “The trading environment has become increasingly challenging” as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, which caused a drop in ‘customer activity and order book levels.’ In spite of this, cement sector sales ‘remained relatively resilient,’ with some producers ‘accelerating maintenance work in shutdowns,’ partially offsetting the effects of project postponements.