Displaying items by tag: Denmark

Denmark: Cement plant manufacturer FLSmidth has seen its revenue increase by 11% year-on-year in the first half of 2017, as its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 25%. The group highlighted that strong momentum in orders from service activities continued along with a higher operating profit, despite one-off costs. Revenues were Euro1.21bn, while cement sector revenues were Euro140m.

"We are pleased to report solid progress towards our key performance indicator targets. The group's service activities continue to benefit from the firming global growth and improvement in confidence. With the second quarter marking the fourth consecutive quarter of strong aftermarket momentum, especially in mining, the service business is stabilising at a higher level," said CEO Thomas Schulz.

Denmark: Bjarne Moltke Hansen has resigned as the Group Executive Vice President of FLSmidth. The 57-year old Danish national started his career in 1984 working for Unicon, a subsidiary of FLSmidth at the time. He subsequently held the position as chief executive officer (CEO) of Cembrit Holding for five years before taking up the position as CEO of Aalborg Portland Holding in 2000. In 2002, Bjarne took on the position as Group Executive Vice President, Customer Services Division until he was appointed Group Executive Vice President, Product Companies Division in 2015.

Denmark: Aalborg Portland has awarded A Tec a contract to upgrade its Cement Kiln 87 in Aalborg. It has ordered two calciners for its 4500t/day semi-dry kiln system that was commissioned in 1988. The calciners will be designed and delivered during the kiln’s annual stop in February and March 2017. Commissioning is planned for the spring of 2017. The upgrades are intended to increase production of Ordinary Portland Cement on the line.

A Tec intends to adapt the flow pattern of the calciner system in a way to improve the operational behaviour of the system. The design will be configured for the usage of 100% solid alternative fuels with low emissions. Additionally, the number of kiln stops due fall through cyclone blockages should be reduced. A Tec will conduct the engineering, supply the equipment and will be responsible for errection and documentation.

The new calciner system will be equipped with the A Tec Post Combustion Chamber (PCC) for the optimised mixture of fuels and combustion air in the end section of the calciner. The PCC was specially developed for the achievement of complete combustion of alternative fuels at high substitution rates.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s revenue for its cement division has risen by 10% year–on-year to Euro576m in 2016 from Euro526m in 2015. Its order intake rose by 63% to Euro615m from Euro377m. The equipment manufacture said that orders had picked up in the second half of 2016. Although it added that the market for new cement capacity remains largely unchanged with supply outweighing demand on a global level. Overall, both order intake and revenue declined for the company as a whole in 2016.

"After a weak first half, activity picked up, finishing the year on a strong note. Rising commodity prices positively impacted sentiment in the mining industry in 2016, although it has yet to translate into higher capital investments. The cement industry is showing early signs of recovery," said Group chief executive officer Thomas Schulz.

Denmark: Piero Corpina has been appointed as the head of the Nordic & Baltic region of Aalborg Portland Holding and chief executive officer of Aalborg Portland and Unicon with effect from 2 January 2017. The Nordic & Baltic Region includes Aalborg Portland, Unicon with plants in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and subsidiaries in Poland, Russia, Iceland, the UK, France and the US. Corpina will be based at the group’s Nordic headquarters at Islands Brygge in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Corpina, aged 47 years, has 20 years of industry experience with LafargeHolcim covering senior line, staff and project roles and he worked on the merger between Lafarge and Holcim. In 2011 he was nominated the chief executive officer of Holcim Italy.

The Italian and Swiss national holds an MBA and PhD from Hochschule St Gallen in Switzerland and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School in Boston, USA and IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Denmark: Klaus Schäfer, the managing director of Beumer’s Danish subsidiary, has been appointed honorary consul of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Central Jutland region of Denmark. In addition to his day job for Beumer Group, his new duties include fostering closer ties between Germany and Denmark, with an emphasis on both trade and culture. Schäfer will assist with both administrative and ceremonial consular tasks. The role is a voluntary one.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s has grown its services activities slightly to Euro997m in the first nine months of 2016. Other than this revenue, profit and order intake have all fallen. Revenue has dropped by 12% year-on-year to Euro1.7bn, profit by 15% to Euro45.7m and order intake by 7% to Euro1.85bn. The engineering company has said it will take corrective actions through site closures, reducing management, optimising its supply chain and making procurement savings.

"The market for new cement capacity continues to be characterised by pricing pressure. That said, the pipeline of potential projects is encouraging, and current tendering activity gives reason to be cautiously optimistic about the mid-term outlook," said Group CEO Thomas Schulz.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s sales revenue from its cement segment has fallen by 39% year-on-year to Euro199m in the first half of 2016 from Euro287m in the same period in 2015. However, its gross order intake increased by 67% to Euro388m from Euro232m although this fell year-on-year by 33% in the second quarter of the year. The industrial engineering supplier cited ‘widespread’ geopolitical crises as hampering incoming investment.

"Mining companies and most cement producers are postponing large investments and spending. They are focussing on equipment and critical spare parts directly linked to operations, as well as on services that can help to solve immediate problems and improve productivity. Our service activities are well positioned to benefit from these market conditions and we will continue enhancing our customer service offerings to maintain our competitive edge. In the light of a weak market outlook, we will continue with internal cost-reduction activities, such as supply chain and procurement optimisation, as well as management delayering. To further strengthen our revenue, we will invest in increasing our sales capacity," said Group CEO Thomas Schulz.

Specifically for the cement industry FLSmidth said that its priorities vary in different locations with cement producers in North America wanting to maximise production, producers in South America wanting to make cost savings, producers in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and southern India wanting to use cost efficiency to combat production overcapacity and producers in Pakistan, Algeria Kenya, northern India and northern Europe wanting to minimise downtime and increase production.

Overall, FLSmidth reported that its revenue fell by 19% to Euro1.06bn from Euro1.31bn. Its order intake remained stable at Euro1.29bn. Profit fell by 65% to Euro22.9m from Euro65.3m.

Denmark: FLSmidth has released ECS/ProcessExpert 8.3, the latest version of its process control system. Following installation and testing at four sites, it is now available for different cement and mineral plant applications, including as a free commercial release to all existing ECS/ProcessExpert version eight customers. The update improves a number of features and benefits including easier transitions for cement recipes.

"Some of the advanced techniques used by the new system include model predictive control and fuzzy logic rules. These allow it to continuously monitor the plant's process and quality parameters and continuously compute new control set points with more speed and accuracy than a human operator," said FLSmidth's Global Product Line Manager for Process Optimisation, King Becerra.

Other benefits offered by the update include a full decision tree on the front page of the system to help operators understand controller actions better and enhanced full plots on the front page to allow operators to see actuator actions and measure responses to a given action from the main page.

Russia: Eurocement Group has said that it is targeting exports of cement at Denmark and the UK. Company chief executive officer Mikhail Skorokhod said that ‘contracts in Denmark and Britain are forthcoming’ in an interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers that was recorded ahead of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Exports by Eurocement to Finland and the Baltic states have been taking place since the end of 2015 with a gradual increase in sales volumes. In Finland the cement producer has a market share of 5%. Skorokhod added that the devaluation of the Russian Ruble has opened up export opportunities for the company. However, the company has not disclosed the volume of its exports, according to Interfax.

The overall volume of cement exports from Russia in January to April 2016 reached 230,000t with production of 13.6Mt, according to data from the Union of Cement Producers.