Displaying items by tag: Closure

Colombia: Cementos Argos plans to close its oil well cement production plant at San Gil in Santander. The closure follows falling demand for this type of cement caused by falling global oil prices. The National Construction Material Industry Workers' trade union Sutimac has requested that the cement producer transfer its 75 employees at the San Gil plant to other parts of the business, according to the El Colombiano newspaper. The union hopes that Cementos Argos will repeat its recent transfer of workers from the now-closed Sabanagrande, Atlantico factory to its plants in Cartagena, Tolu and Antioquia.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Banza Ngungu, the CEO of Cimenterie de Lukala, has blamed the closure on the company’s integrated cement plant on imports from Angola. He attributed the increase in imports from the neighbouring country to currency fluctuation, according to Africanews. The Minister of Economy Modeste Bahati Lukwebo added that cement imports crossing the Angolan border were not paying the required import tariffs.

India: Opposition politicians in Meghalaya have warned the state government over management concerns regarding the Mawmluh Cherra Cement plant. The state owned cement plant stopped production in mid-2014. The local government has since announced that it intends to loan the company US$12m towards paying off bills from an upgrade project started in 2005 including loan payments, power bills and salary costs, according to the Indian Telegraph. After upgrades are completed the plant will have a cement production capacity of 600t/day.

"I know in the past the government used to appoint Tom, Dick and Harry to manage the MCCL. However, if we want the factory and other public sector units of the state to be free from ailments, we need a strong management and run it professionally," said former state chief minister Donkupar Roy at the state assembly. He also demanded that the head office of the factory be moved to Sohra.

Russia: LafargeHolcim has permanently stopped clinker production at its Voskresenskcement plant in the Moscow region due to market constraction and oversupply. The decision is part of a reorganisation its cement production structure in the Central region of Russia to fight the impact of the recession in the construction sector. The new structure includes cement production at the Schurovo (Moscow region) and Ferzikovo (Kaluga region) plants, leveraging their competitive cost structure.

"With the reorganisation of its cement production structure in the Central region of Russia the company ensures its viability and is well positioned in the country to meet customer requirements and make a valuable contribution to the Group," said Guillermo Brusco, CEO of LafargeHolcim Russia.

Staff at Voskresenskcement will be transferred internally where possible. Current customers of Voskresenskcement will be offered products from the Schurovo and Ferzikovo plants.

Plans for the former Shoreham cement plant on the south coast of England took an exciting turn towards the end of 2014. Zero carbon design firm Zedfactory announced its plans to regenerate the brownfield site into an eco-resort featuring holiday homes, performance space, affordable homes, a hotel and conference centre, a watersports venue, wildlife preserves and more. Or, ' hobbit homes' as the Daily Mail put it when it covered the story six months later.

This raises the question of what happens to cement plants when they close?

In the UK, where a housing shortage in certain areas collide with NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitudes and strict planning regulations, former industrial or brownfield sites are prime sites for new housing developments. Subsequently, old cement plants are attractive to builders to build houses. Two examples of current sites heading this way include the former Cemex plant in Barrington, Cambridgeshire and the former Lafarge Eastgate plant in County Durham. Both sites have gained planning permission and were still in the pre-building stage according to local press reports in mid-2015. Dylan Moore's website 'Cement Plants and Kilns in Britain and Ireland' provides a good resource on former plants in the UK and Ireland.

One of the jokes about classic UK science-fiction television series Dr Who was that during the 1970s it was either filmed on cheap studio sets or in quarries. Endless encounters with alien beings took place in cement plant quarries including Lafarge Northfleet (alien in spacesuits), Lafarge Aberthaw (tentacle faced aliens), Hanson Ketton (Arthurian knights who may in fact be aliens...) and many more. Indeed, one of the conditions of the proposed Lafarge Eastgate sale in March 2015 was that a television production company could continue to use the quarry to film an adaptation of Beowulf for five years!

On the more imaginative side of what to do with old plants, La Fabrica near Barcelona is a spectacular example. Architect Ricardo Bofill converted a 19th century plant into his firm's head office, La Fabrica, and his own personal residence. As Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura's website puts it, "Eight silos remained, which became offices, a models laboratory, archives, a library, a projections room and a gigantic space known as 'The Cathedral', used for exhibitions, concerts and a whole range of cultural functions linked to the professional activities of the architect." Architecturally the project refers to Catalan Civic Gothic style with surrealist elements.

This sense of entertainment from industrial architecture was continued by sculptor Bob Cassilly in St Louis, USA who decided to build Cementland. Cassilly purchased the former plant and slowly assembled his clinker-themed version of Disneyland. Unfortunately he died in 2001 following an accident with a bulldozer at the site before he finished.

More and more former cement plants will be seeking new purposes as Europe rationalises its cement industries and excess capacity is eliminated. China too faces similar issues as it consolidates its industry. Most will probably lie fallow before eventually being knocked down and then turned into something following the cheapest economic path forward. With luck though, some will follow the dreams of Zedfactory and people like Ricardo Bofill and Bob Cassilly.

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Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos intends to temporarily suspend production at its cement plant in Ribeirao Grande, Sao Paulo from August 2015. The plant will operate as a distribution centre from this time. The decision has been blamed on current Brazilian financial climate.

A total of 128 workers are to lose their jobs, of which 83 have already been suspended, according to Valor Econômico. The company has also confirmed it is working with the workers union for the region to try to relocate the dismissed workers.

China: China has ordered several cement plants located in the northern provinces to shut for four months, starting on 1 December 2014, to reduce over-capacity and curb air pollution during the winter months, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The move, which will affect 103 production lines in the three Provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin, is set to hit coal consumption and limit a rebound in domestic prices.

The China Cement Association and the three provincial governments jointly issued the order. Persistent over-capacity has dogged the sector for years, with northern China using only about half of its total production capacity.

The northern provinces, including Hebei, are a major source of industrial pollutants blamed for a toxic smog that often spreads to neighbouring regions like Beijing. Kong Xiangzhong, vice president of the China Cement Association, was quoted as saying the winter stoppage would greatly curb air pollution, as fuel consumption increases markedly when temperatures drop. Total cement output in northern China, including Inner Mongolia, hovers around 120Mt in the winter months and requires about 20Mt of coal. Fuel consumption falls to just 16Mt in summer, according to Xiangzhong.

The suspension in Xinjiang is expected to reduce coal consumption by about 1Mt and help increase plant utilisation rates to 75%, from the current 60%, according to local media reports. It takes about 200kg of coal to produce 1t of cement, according to the World Coal Association.

Despite efforts to cut output, China's cement production rose 9.6% to 2.41Bnt in 2013 from a year earlier, while total capacity has surged to more than 3.2Bnt/yr, according to data from the cement association.

Nepal: The Nepal Bureau of Standards & Metrology (NBSM) has closed two cement plants, Butwal Cement Mills and Shubha Shree Jagadamba, for manufacturing and selling substandard products. It has also threatened to remove 16 other cement plants from the market for not acquiring the Nepal Standard (NS) mark.

"We initiated action against these factories after their products failed to meet the standard," said NBSM Director General Ram Aadhar Sah. The NBSM standard requires that cement should have a strength of 16MPa within three days of setting, 22MPa within seven days and 33MPa within 28 days. Products from Butwal Cement Mills and Shubha Shree Jagadamba were found to have strengths below these levels.

The 16 factories facing the threat of a ban include CG Cement, Rolpa Cement, Arniko Cement, Ghorahi Cement, MJP Cement, Maruti Cement, Kailash Cement, Star Cement, Krishna Cement, KP Cement, Shree Cement, Om Cement, Eastern Cosmos Cement, International Cement and others.

Italy: Italian cement producer Italcementi plans to stop production at three of its Italian cement plants, bringing the total of its dormant plants in the country to nine. Italcementi director general Giovanni Battista Ferrario made the announcement at a shareholders' meeting, blaming the move on overcapacity in the face of a huge slump in domestic demand

The company expects to save Euro110m through the closures as part of an efficiency drive. It posted losses of Euro362m in 2012, most of it due to poor Italian demand. Lay-offs for over a quarter of Italian staff were announced in December 2012. It said the Italian market "continues to be marked by productive over-capacity compared to a demand that has dropped to the levels last seen at the end of the 1970s."

Italcementi had 17 operational plants in 2012. It has since then sold one and halted production at five others. However, CEO Carlo Pesenti told the meeting that the company plans to invest up to Euro150m on upgrades at its Rezzato plant and has plans to develop its Calusco plant.

China: Shanghai's municipal government has announced that it will stop cement production when air pollution reaches 'heavy' or greater levels. The plan may affect at least three cement plants in the Shanghai area. The move follows a similar plan in Beijing that was introduced in 2012.

According to the plan, emergency measures will be taken when the PM_2.5 air quality index rises above 200µg/m³ for 18 hours and looks likely to continue. PM_2.5 refers to the measurements of particulate matter smaller than 2.5μm and the World Health Organization considers the safe daily level to be 25µg/m³. The average density of PM_2.5 in Shanghai for the first three months of 2013 was 73 µg/m³. China's daily limit is 75µg/m³ and its yearly limit 35µg/m³.

Other emergency measures include alerting the public, restricting production in highly-polluting industries and reducing the number of vehicles on the roads. In addition power plants will be required to use high-quality coal to reduce pollution, vehicles transporting construction materials and waste will be ordered off the roads and any construction work causing dust will be shut down.