Displaying items by tag: Canada

Switzerland: Holcim has appointed Toufic Tabbara as Region Head North America and a member of the group executive committee. He succeeds René Thibault, who has decided to leave the company.

Tabbara was most recently working as the chief executive officer for US Cement. He joined the group in 1998 as Director Strategy & Development in the US and has led Holcim’s ready-mix concrete, aggregates and cement businesses in the US, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Algeria.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, US and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

China: Nanjing Kisen International Engineering has secured a collaboration agreement with Canada-based Delta CleanTech for the implementation of the latter’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems at two China National Building Material (CNBM) cement plants. SCMP News has reported that there is a one-time licencing fee - which is not paid by Nanjing Kisen International Engineering but is traditionally paid by the CO₂ capture plant customer - of 4.5 - 5% of capital costs. Installations cost upward of US$40m, depending on capacity.

There are currently 40 operational or upcoming CCS installations nationally with a total capture capacity of 3Mt/yr, chiefly in the oil, coal chemicals and energy sectors.The Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning has forecast that China’s cement industry CCS demand will reach 200Mt/yr by 2060. Delta CleanTech president Jeff Allison said that current challenges for Chinese cement producers seeking to reduce their CO₂ emissions include difficulties disposing of captured CO₂ and a lack of rewards and penalties around emissions control beyond the basic national efficiency requirements.

Nanjing Kisen International Engineering previously launched its first 155kg/day pilot CCS study in partnership with the Canada-based International CCS Knowledge Centre in July 2021.

Canada: Lafarge Canada is supplying its ECOPact reduced-CO₂ concrete to contractor PCL for its construction of the upcoming Genesee power plant in Alberta.

Lafarge North America president and general manager Prez Skiba said "The original concrete proposed was already a low carbon design, but we knew we could take it further. We brought in further emissions reductions with our ECOPact design, and we were able to reduce embodied CO₂ by an additional 20%. That's 20% over and above the original design, which already offered a 20% reduction. The combined 36% CO₂ reduction is equivalent to the energy used by 70 houses in a year."

Canada: Concrete Economics managing director and long-time figure in the North American cement industry Colin Sutherland has died. Colleagues from throughout his 30 year-career spanning Canada, France and the US have been posting memories of Sutherland. Olsen Management Consulting president and Sutherland’s former Lafarge and Votorantim Cimentos colleague Richard Olsen said “We've lost a dear friend and long-time colleague. Colin was highly respected and valued in the cement industry and had developed a depth of knowledge and insight that was unique.” He continued “Colin's infectious laughter, ever-positive attitude and charm endeared him to many. He'll be sorely missed.”

Before joining Concrete Economics in May 2021, Sutherland was president and co-founder of SC Market Analytics and a board member of US Concrete. Previous positions also included vice president, commercial strategy, for Votorantim Cimentos North America; vice president, business development, integration and strategy for Holcim US and vice president, cementitious materials for Lafarge Cement. Between 1995 and 2001, Sutherland served as director of corporate development for Blue Circle North America, where he subsequently became group integration director following its merger with Lafarge Cement.

Canada: The Cement Association of Canada has appointed Sarah Petrevan as its Director of Sustainability. She previously worked as the Policy Director for Clean Energy Canada and the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation. She is a graduate of Victoria University in Toronto.

US: Lehigh Cement’s Mason City cement plant in Iowa has transitioned to Portland limestone cement (PLC) production. The plant will produce the company’s EcoCem brand PLC. It previously launched the cement in Canada in February 2021.

Canada: TransAlta Corporation has secured a contract to supply 100Gwh/yr of wind power to Lafarge Canada’s Exshaw, Alberta. The power will cover an estimated 25% of the plant’s electricity needs.

Lafarge Western Canada’s head of sustainability and environment Cailee Ellis said “This agreement, first of its kind for Lafarge in Alberta, is an important step to utilising higher amounts of renewable electricity at our facilities.”

Canada: Lehigh Cement and Enbridge have announced a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on carbon storage for the integrated Edmonton cement plant in Alberta. Captured emissions will be transported via pipeline and sequestered by Enbridge. Lehigh Cement says it is developing North America’s first full-scale carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) unit for the cement industry at its Edmonton plant, with the goal of capturing approximately 0.78Mt/yr of CO₂.

Pipeline company Enbridge intends to apply to develop an open access carbon hub in the Wabamun area, west of Edmonton in conjunction with Lehigh Cement and Capital Power, as part of the Government of Alberta's Request for Full Project Proposals process. Once complete the Open Access Wabamun Carbon Hub would be among the largest integrated CCUS projects in the world. Subject to the award of carbon sequestration rights and regulatory approvals, the project could be in service as early as 2025.

Canada: Lafarge Canada, part of Holcim, has contributed US$100,000 to a conservation effort undertaken in the sensitive Great Lakes region as a partner with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). In the future Lafarge Canada will provide additional support to enhance the conserved land's biodiversity and educational value.

At US$16m, the NCC's Manitoulin Island acquisition is one of its largest-ever in Ontario. Covering 7608 hectares, the Vidal Bay Forests and Shoreline property connects with adjacent conservation lands to form a protected area of more than 248km² of forests, wetlands and shoreline, the largest of its kind south of the Canadian Shield in Ontario. Lafarge has a nearby 1640 hectare quarry in Meldrum Bay with two nearby international shipping terminals that service Ontario and the US.

There have been a couple of acquisitions of note this week in the north-western US and Holcim has picked up another building solutions company. To find out how the latter relates to former photography products producer Kodak, read on.

Starting with the north-western US, HeildelbergCement announced that it finalised the acquisition of Corliss Resources, a large family-owned aggregates and ready-mixed concrete company, for an undisclosed sum. The purchase includes major aggregate operations with sales volumes of about 2Mt/yr and reserves and resources of about 170Mt and four ready-mixed concrete (RMX) plants selling about 0.3Mm³/yr in the Greater Seattle area.

Global Cement normally sticks to cement but Holcim did something similar last week. It completed the acquisition of Cowden, another ready-mixed concrete and aggregate producer based in Bellingham in Washington state. This sale includes two RMX plants, eight aggregate facilities and a hauling fleet. Again, there was no word of the price.

Both the HeildelbergCement and Holcim purchases in the north-western US fit the selective bolt-on approach both companies have favoured in recent years. Looking specifically at the US, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that estimated production for consumption of construction sand and gravel grew by 7% year-on-year to 753Mt in the first nine months of 2021. Estimated total construction aggregate production rose by 5% to 1.9Gt. Within the country, Washington’s sales of construction aggregates increased by 16% to 33Mt, the third largest rate by state nationally. Meanwhile, cement shipments for the country grew by 4% to 79.9Mt although they actually fell by 3% in Washington. This compares to annual growth of 2.8% in cement consumption in 2021 that the Portland Cement Association (PCA) was forecasting for the Pacific region of the US in the middle of 2021.

Holcim has been snapping up aggregates or RMX assets in established markets throughout 2021. These include US-based Marshall Concrete Products in December 2021, US-based Utelite Corporation in September 2021, Germany-based Heinrich Teufel in July 2021, the aggregates business and two RMX plants from Greece-based Halyps in May 2021 and Edile Commerciale and Cemex Rhone Alpes in Italy and France in February 2021. At the same time HeidelbergCement was mainly divesting itself of aggregates and RMX assets. It sold Halyps to Holcim and later in the same month agreed to sell its US West region to Martin Marietta Materials for US$2.3bn. The deal included cement, aggregates, RMX and asphalt businesses in California, Arizona, Oregon and Nevada. This covered two of its cement plants, with the exception of the 1.5Mt/yr Permanente cement plant in California, related distribution terminals, 17 active aggregates sites and several downstream operations. This makes the acquisition of new aggregate and RMX assets in Washington by HeildelbergCement interesting as we can see the company adjusting to its new market position. Although subsidiary Lehigh Hanson does not have a cement plant in the state it does operate a terminal in Seattle as well as other aggregate and RMX operations. North across the border in Canada though it still runs the integrated Delta Cement plant and terminal near Vancouver.

Returning to Holcim’s other acquisition this week brings us to Holcim’s target to expand the net sales of its Solutions & Products division to 30% of the group total by 2025 as part of its plans to decarbonise. This week it took one more step towards this goal with an agreement to buy France-based PRB Group, a manufacturer of coatings, insulations, adhesives and flooring systems. Global Cement Weekly has covered this topic a few times but, to recap, it started in January 2021 when Holcim announced it was buying roofing and building envelope producer Firestone Building Products for US$3.4bn. Various other related acquisitions have followed including an agreement to buy US-based Malarkey Roofing Products in December 2021.

How any of this relates to Kodak is as follows. Holcim’s predecessor Lafarge previously owned a major business away from cement, concrete and aggregates, namely gypsum. The gypsum wallboard business, like roofing, emits far less carbon than clinker production. In 2010 Lafarge’s gypsum business constituted nearly 9% of group revenue and it described itself as the third largest company in the sector worldwide. This was divested in the early 2010s in response to debts accrued by Lafarge’s acquisition of Orascom Cement in 2008. A decade later this decision appears to be the opposite of Holcim’s current strategy and indeed much of the cement sector’s current attempts to lower its carbon risk.

Kodak infamously filed for bankruptcy in 2012 after failing to move from analogue photography products to the digital market. The question cement company strategists should be asking themselves is whether their sector faces the same kind of disruption from the government and investment response to climate change. Lafarge apparently didn’t think so 10 years ago. Its successor Holcim does.