Displaying items by tag: Conference

Mexico: Cemex has hosted Mujer Construrama, a conference and workshop series hosted by female leaders in construction. 320 participants attended the event. The group said that it reinforced its commitment to gender equality, as a signatory of the UN Women and UN Global Compact’s Women’s Empowerment Principles, promoting equality in the workplace, marketplace, and the community. It added that women’s empowerment benefits individuals and society, allowing for economic and social improvement and healthy competition. Construrama is the largest retail building materials distribution network in Mexico, with 2100 stores. Women lead approximately 30% of the stores.

Saudi Arabia: The 25th Arab International Cement Conference and Exhibition (AICCE) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been postponed from 1 – 3 December 2020 to a later date to be announced in due course. The cause of the postponement is the impacts of the coronavirus. Arab Union of Cement and Building Materials secretary general Ahmad Al-Rousan said, “For health and safety reasons for all delegates, exhibitors, and speakers, and in order to provide all participants with a reliable basis for planning, we see this rescheduling of the event as the most responsible conclusion.”

India: Mahendra Singhi, the president of the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA), says that the cement sector can grow its exports with support from the government. He made his comments at the 16th Green Cementech 2020, a virtual conference organised by the CMA and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), according to the Hindu newspaper. Singhi said, “The cement industry in India is already aligned with the new vision of self reliance (atmanirbharta) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With the right policies in place and support from the government, the Indian cement industry can even increase its production capacity and contribute significantly to India’s global trade and exports.”

UK: Global Cement Magazine's virtual CemProducer Conference on 19 May 2020 attracted 940 registrations from 84 countries worldwide, to listen to 12 presentations on the topic of 'cement plant maintenance in the time of coronavirus.'

The conference proceedings volume, delegate list, presentation PDFs and access to the full conference video are available for purchase

Image credit: creativeneko / Shutterstock.com

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.

Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Belgorodsky Cement has dispatched the first batch of bagged cement from the new packing and palletising line at its 3.8Mt/yr integrated plant in Belgorod West, Belgorod Oblast. The 70t/hr-capacity line produces 50kg cement bags on pallets of 1.7t (34 bags).

Eurocement has also announced the first delivery of cement from its Belgorodsky Cement plant to Yaroslavl, Tolyatti and Nizhny Novgorod by river in 2020. Eurocement senior vice president Alexander Sapronov said, “The delivery of products by river transport is one of the most cost-effective methods of transportation. High-quality loading and reliable packaging guarantee consumers complete cargo safety.”

Eurocement has continued production throughout the coronavirus outbreak, but has restricted meetings, conferences and training sessions since 23 March 2020. The Group said, “Eurocement products are strategically important to the nation's economy. In order to ensure smooth operation of production facilities and of the group as a whole, measures have been taken to minimise the risk of spreading the coronavirus.” These include: ‘regular health check-ups and temperature measurements for employees and subcontractors, air disinfection, antiseptic treatment of operational surfaces, provision of skin antiseptics in toilets and informing employees about safety recommendations.’

With events moving fast in Europe with regard to the on-going health crisis, here are a few threads to consider from the cement industry news this week.

Firstly, there have been two solar power stories over the last week in North America. Grupo Argos said that it had installed a 10.6MW solar power plant at Cementos Argos’ Piedras Azules cement plant in Comayagua. Then US-based Alamo Cement Company was reported to have signed a contract with Renergetica to build a solar power plant at its integrated plant in San Antonio, Texas. Global Cement has looked at this topic on and off over the years from the steady addition of photovoltaic (PV) solar plants around the world to supply electricity to cement plants to more ambitious plans such as research into using concentrated solar power to start powering creating clinker directly. These two latest PV stories follow projects in El Salvador and Cyprus so far this year. We’re not going to comment now on the overall progress the cement industry is making towards moving away from fossil fuels but the general trend is encouraging.

Next, there are on-going investments and upgrade projects being announced. Germany’s KHD revealed on 17 March 2020 that is building a new raw mill and pyroprocessing line for an ACC plant in India. FCT combustion recently announced that it has won a deal to supply Titan Cement in the US with an upgrade to a kiln line to natural gas. Buzzi Unicem’s SLK Cement in Russia has agreed to co-process solid municipal waste at its Sukholozhskcement plant. South Africa’s PPC has invested in a pneumatic offloading facility and a silo for its George Depot cement terminal in the Western Cape. These will have likely been agreed before the global coronavirus outbreak but they are reminders that some level of capital expenditure by cement companies is happening.

In China the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said this week that the domestic cement sector’s net profit grew by 20% year-on-year to US$26.6bn in 2019. With this in mind the first quarter results for 2020 from cement producers in China will make essential reading for producers from elsewhere around the world wondering what to expect. However, a recent interview with the president of Huaxin Cement, a company based in Hubei province at the epicentre of the outbreak, revealed that despite the short term economic disruption from the quarantine the company was expecting a rapid economic rebound after April 2020 provided that there is a suitable government stewardship. He also mentioned the key role the company was playing in disposing of clinical waste. As such it was hoping for tax breaks to support continuing incineration and the advancement of co-processing in general.

Finally, also on the health crisis, many cement industry events have been cancelled or postponed as work practices change including those organised by Global Cement. We’re taking our events online in the short term as virtual conferences with opportunities for information exchange and networking. We encourage as many of you as possible to register.

All: Global Cement will continue to publish both Global Cement Magazine and Global Cement Weekly throughout the current coronavirus outbreak. Global Cement organises a number of cement-related conferences, and those in the remainder of the first half of the year have already been postponed to provide certainty for all participants. Each event (Global GypSupply, Global Slag and Global CemProcess) will instead take place as a virtual conference, with live Q&As and cyber-networking. Please see the respective event website for details.

Global Cement will continue to supply its customers with up-to-date and accurate information, the means to promote their businesses and the forum to make valuable business contacts. For commercial opportunities, please contact Paul Brown, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

World: A number of cement industry events such as a conferences and trade fairs have been affected by the coronavirus epidemic. Here is a roundup of some of the major ones.

This list will be continuously updated (please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with anything we may have missed)

IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference (Las Vegas 19-23 April 2020 - Cancelled (next event is in Orlando, Florida, 23-27 May 2021)

CemTech Asia (Jakarta) 14-17 June - Postponed

Solids Dortmund, Germany - postponed to 24 - 25 June 2020

Hannover Fair, Germany - first postponed to 13 - 17 July 2020, then cancelled - now due on 23-24 June 2021

IFAT, Munich, Germany - postponed to 7 - 11 September 2020

International Powder & Bulk Solids, Chicago, US - postponed to 6 - 8 October 2020

Global Slag Conference & Exhibition, Vienna, Austria - postponed to 10 - 11 November 2020

interpack, Düsseldorf, Germany - postponed to 25 February - 3 March 2021

HILLHEAD Quarrying and Recycling Show - Postponed to 22 - 24 June 2021

Cementtech, Anhui, China - postponed - dates TBA

Global CemProcess Conference & Exhibition, Munich, Germany - postponed - dates TBA

Intercem Shipping Americas, Chicago, US – postponed – dates TBA (Intercem Americas 26-28 October in Miami going ahead)

LogiMAT, Stuttgart, Germany - cancelled. Next: 9-11 March 2021

China: The coronavirus outbreak which began in China’s Wuhan province has forced the China Cement Association to postpone its CementTech 2020 cement industry supply conference in Anhui province. The conference was due to take place on 25-27 March 2020 at the International Conference and Exhibition Centre in the province’s capital of Hefei.