Displaying items by tag: Belgium

Belgium: Carmeuse has signed a joint development agreement with France-based energy transition specialist ENGIE and John Cockerill for a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) project in Wallonia. It will concentrate CO₂ from a new type of lime kiln and combine it with ‘green’ hydrogen to produce ‘e-methane.’ The hydrogen will be produced by a 75MW electrolyser plant powered by renewable electricity. The company said, “The produced e-methane will be suitable for injection into the national natural gas grid. This renewable e-methane can be used by industrial users or as an alternative fuel in the transport sector, thus allowing these sectors to decarbonise.”

Construction is due to begin in 2022 for commissioning of the installation in 2025. Its total investment cost is Euro150m. The partners have applied for funding from the EU Innovation Fund and Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) fund. The project’s estimated CO₂ emissions reduction over 10 years is 900,000t

Chief executive officer (CEO) Rodolphe Collinet said, “We are delighted to join forces with John Cockerill and ENGIE for the development of this very exciting and strategic project. It is a major step forward in our ambition to become CO₂-neutral by 2050. This project is a very concrete and important example of Carmeuse’s strong commitment and contribution to sustainable development.”

Belgium: Magotteaux has launched Expand, a vertical roller mill (WRM) wear parts product line for the cement industry. The equipment supplier says that the range offers high resistance, consistent production, energy efficiency and lower maintenance and replacement frequency. It also uses a scrap buy-back program to consider product lifecycle concerns. The wear parts line comes in two variants: Expand One, the standard metal matrix composite (MMC) product; and the higher performance Expand+.

Sweden: The Committee for European Construction Equipment (CECE) and the Swedish Association for Construction Equipment (SACE) have announced that the CECE Congress will take place on 8 October 2020 via livestream from Stockholm. CECE said, “In the world of digitalisation, acknowledging the unprecedented situation that the COVID-19 outbreak has imposed on Europe, we present to you a digital CECE Congress.” CECE said that the event would be of interest to anyone involved in the cement industry. Attendance is free of charge.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, has published its new Carbon Neutrality Roadmap, setting out its ambition to reach net zero emissions along the cement and concrete value chain by 2050. The roadmap examines how CO₂ emissions can be reduced at each stage of the value chain – clinker, cement, concrete, construction and (re)carbonation – to achieve zero net emissions by 2050. It quantifies the role of each technology in providing CO₂ emissions savings, making concrete political and technical recommendations to support this objective.

“As Europe begins its green recovery, the significance of this moment for our sector is huge. This is our response to the EU Green Deal – we have a plan and are ready to make the leap.” said Raoul de Parisot, president of Cembureau. The association has identified areas where it says it requires decisive political action from the European Union (EU). These include: the development of a pan-European CO₂ transportation and storage network; action on circular economy to support the use of non-recyclable waste and biomass waste in cement production; policies to reduce European building’s CO₂ footprint, based on a life-cycle approach, that incentivise the market uptake of low-carbon cements; a ‘level’ playing field on carbon, regulatory certainty and an industrial transformation agenda.

Cembureau says it aspires to be in line with the Paris Agreement’s two degrees scenario, reducing CO₂ emissions by 30% for cement and 40% down the value chain. Its chief executive Koen Coppenholle added that, “Carbon neutrality along our full value-chain will be a massive effort, but we are confident we can achieve it. Our sector has made significant progress and, with the right tools and support from the EU, we can go much further.”

Europe: Australia-based Calix has announced that construction will begin on its second low emissions intensity lime and cement (Leilac) carbon capture and storage (CCS) installation at a ‘European cement plant’ on 7 April 2020. ASX ComNews has reported that collaborators on the project, which has received Euro16m under the EU’s Horizon 2020 grant scheme, are Portugal-based Cimpor, Germany-based HeidelbergCement, Germany and France-based energy companies Ingenieurbüro-Kühlerbau-Neustadt (IKN) and Engie and Belgium-based minerals and lime company Lhoist. Calix has said that the 100,000t/yr process emissions capture facility will be operational in late 2024.
The company has appointed Emma Bowring Leilac-2 project leader.

The first Leilac installation was completed at HeidelbergCement’s 1.5Mt/yr integrated Lixhe plant in Belgium’s Limburg province in mid-2019.

Netherlands: Royal Cement Benelux, part of Royal El Minya Cement and the Sesco Group, has acquired a new 18,500m² facility in the port of Schiedam near Rotterdam. The new facility, which includes 13,500m2 combined office, storage and operating space will be the company’s second European location. Available on the premises is 160 M1 Quay, which can receive ships up to 15,000dwt.

“The opening of Royal Cement Benelux’s new Schiedam facility is an important step towards the ambition to develop the European market,” said Martin Bakker, general manager of Royal Cement Benelux. The company intends to target its white cement products from the terminal to Germany by barge, to several locations in Belgium and the Netherlands by inland rivers and to the UK by sea.

The new location is intended to be first of several expansions for the company in 2020. Royal Cement Benelux says it wants to take former business in Western Europe from CBR since it stopped white cement production. The group is also opening an Italian terminal.

Belgium: Carol Jackson, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of HarbisonWalker International (HWI), has started a two-year term as president of the World Refractory Association (WRA). She suceeded Stefan Borgas, the CEO RHI Magnesita, who led the organisation since January 2018.

Jackson, aged 47 years, became CEO of HWI in 2017 following three years as its Senior Vice President and General Manager. She has spent over 20 years of her career in the paint, coatings, chemicals, glass, ceramic materials, and specialty steel industries, serving automotive, industrial, consumer, and construction markets. Before joining HWI in 2014, she served as Vice President of the bar, wire, and strip business units of Carpenter Technology Corporation. She also held various roles at PPG Industries, where she rose to became Director of Global Raw Materials Purchasing.

Jackson is a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania, US and she holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business. She earned her undergraduate degree from Duquesne University.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, says it will undertake a review of the targets set out in its 2050 Low Carbon Roadmap (2013/2018) in order to align the industry’s efforts with the carbon neutrality objectives contained in the European Green Deal published in December 2019. Following this reassessment, the association says it publish a revised low-carbon roadmap setting out the key role of cement and concrete in the circular economy and a path to achieving carbon neutrality along its value chain in Europe by 2050. Cembureau expects the revised roadmap to be published in early spring 2020.

“As an industry we are determined to ensure that we play our part in helping Europe to meet its emissions reduction targets. With concrete, our industry has a sustainable building material that is uniquely positioned as an essential enabler of the transition to a carbon neutral society,” said Cembureau’s president Raoul de Parisot.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, has called on the European Union’s (EU) Green Deal to incentivise investment in low-carbon technologies, provide long-term legal certainty and foster the industry’s global competitiveness. It said that the new proposal to tackle climate change showed ‘great promise’ and ‘ambitious vision’ but that this needed to be converted into action to support a successful industrial transformation.

The association is concerned about a new carbon border adjustment mechanism. In its view, “the replacement of the existing carbon leakage measures by an untested mechanism would create considerable uncertainty and risks.” Instead it called on the EU to look at a design that complements the existing carbon leakage measures and is fair for third country importers and EU producers.

Aspects of the European Green Deal that the association praised included the recognition that the cement industry is ‘indispensible’ to the European economy. It also liked the European Commission’s (EC) emphasis on the circular economy that fits with work the sector is doing already from alternative fuels usage to recycling concrete.

"The European Green Deal is our new growth strategy – for a growth that gives back more than it takes away. It shows how to transform our way of living and working, of producing and consuming so that we live healthier and make our businesses innovative. We can all be involved in the transition and we can all benefit from the opportunities,” said EC president Ursula von der Leyen in relation to the new policy proposal.

The EC published its recommendations on how to help energy-intensive industries meet the EU’s 2050 climate target in late November 2019. Its key suggestions were to create markets for climate-neutral and circular products, develop large-scale pilot projects on clean technologies and switch to alternative climate-neutral energy and feedstock sources. It added that the pilot projects should be supported by EU funds and given easier access to private financing. These recommendations will be presented to the EU member states, the EU Competitiveness Council and the European Parliament in early 2020.

Netherlands: Germany’s HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Eerste Nederland Cement Industrie (ENCI) announced on 9 December 2019 the upcoming closure of its former 1.8Mt/yr integrated Maastricht plant in 2020. Het Belang van Limburg has reported that the Maastricht plant, which stepped down to grinding-only in March 2019 after 91 years’ kiln operation, received an insufficient supply of clinker from ENCI’s sister company CBR Cement’s 1.5Mt/yr Lixhe plant in Wallonia, Belgium to guarantee profitable production.

Clinker grinding continues at ENCI’s 1.4Mt/yr IJmuiden and 0.6Mt/yr Rotterdam grinding plants, each of which has better access to clinker imports due to their proximity to deepwater ports.