Displaying items by tag: Finland
Boliden announces upcoming alternative cement plant
22 March 2024Finland: Boliden says it has a developed a 95% reduced-CO2 alternative cement production process based on the use of slag. Nordic Daily News has reported that the process has received verification from ‘established players in the cement industry.’ A preliminary study is underway, wherein Boliden will establish a 250,000t/yr production plant. Additionally, the process extracts usable metal from slag.
Paebbl trials 100t/yr carbon-storing cement reactor
30 November 2023Finland/Netherlands/Sweden: Paebbl has commenced production of its carbon-storing cement using its new 100t/yr Obelix reactor. The company says that the trial represents a 100x scale up of its capacity in under six months. The Obelix reactor produces cement in 500l batches. Paebbl’s cement has a CO2 storage capacity of 200kg/t. It expects to begin shipping samples to early adopter customers in the Benelux and Nordic regions from early 2024. The next scale-up for the company will come with the construction of a continuously operating pilot plant in late 2024, further increasing its cement capacity by a factor of 10.
Finland: Finnsementti has appointed Tommy Ranta as its Operations & Commercial Director.
Ranta has been employed by CRH and its subsidiaries since 2007. He originally started working for Finnsementti in 2007 as an Operating Engineer. He later worked for Jura Cement in Switzerland and then returned to Finnsementti from 2012 in a variety roles, including plant manager of the Parainen cement plant, before eventually becoming the company’s Production Director. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics and a master’s degree in science, economics and business adminsitrtion from Åbo Akademi University in Turku.
Europe/India: Finland-based Betolar has secured EU-wide and Indian patents for a new waste-based alternative concrete produced without cement and capable of storing energy. Betolar said that the material, which is already patented in Finland, is especially suited for use in renewable energy infrastructure, where it can provide a storage solution for dealing with short-term peaks. Chief commercial officer Ville Voipio said that the company will now seek to establish a partnership for commercialisation of its new alternative building material.
Betolar produces and markets the Geoprime additive used to produce cement-free concrete from supplementary cementitious materials, including ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), in regions that include India and the EU.
Finland: Finnsementti is carrying out upgrades to its two integrated cement plants as part of its sustainability targets to 2030. The subsidiary of Ireland-based CRH is installing new main burner equipment at its Lappeenranta plant with completion scheduled for mid-2023. The project is intended to allow the plant to increase its use of alternative fuels. The company’s Parainen plant is replacing its satellite coolers with a grate cooler with completion scheduled for the spring of 2024. This work is expected to decrease the plant’s emissions by 10%. Overall the group is preparing to decrease its CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030 compared to 2021 levels.
India: UltraTech Cement has announced a plans to install a RotoDynamic Heater (RDH) supplied by Finland-based Coolbrook at one of its cement plants. The RDH uses renewably powered electrical heat, eliminating the need for cement fuels. UltraTech Cement will initially test the equipment in the drying of alternative fuel (AF) in its existing AF line.
UltraTech Cement managing director Kailash Jhanwar said “As a founding member of the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA), we are committed to the sectoral aspiration of delivering net zero concrete by 2050. Towards this end, we are continuously striving to innovate at every stage of the whole life of concrete. Coolbrook’s RDH technology represents an exciting technological pathway that we believe has the potential to exponentially accelerate our progress towards full decarbonisation. Every megawatt of clean energy we add to our mix makes a big difference.”
Read more about Coolbrook’s RDH in the September 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine
Finland: Tana Oy has appointed Kalle Saarimaa as its chief executive officer with effect from 1 June 2023.
Saarimaa is currently working as the Senior Vice President for Circular Solutions at Fortum Oyj. However, he has been a member of the board of Tana Oy since 2021. Prior to working for Fortum Oyj he held posts with Ekokem and Walki Oy. He is also active in Finnish and European waste management organisations and as a board member of circular economy companies.
Tana sells products to the recycling and landfill sectors such as shredders, compactors, screeners, sifters and more.
Betolar calls for a global performance-based standard to support low-carbon building materials
03 May 2023UK: Riku Kytömäki, the chief executive officer of Betolar, has called for a global performance-based standard to replace the current building requirements that restrict the use of new low-carbon materials to replace cement in concrete production. He made the comments at the London Concrete Expo. Kytömäki argued that current standards state that concrete manufacturers must use a certain percentage of cement to strengthen the finished product. Betolar’s product Geoprime is an additive designed for use in cement-free concrete production with ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS). However, “ageing” standards rule out the use of these kinds of products such as this despite their sustainability advantages.
Kytömäki said “It is time for global concrete industry to step up their sustainability efforts. New material innovation is available. It is cost-effective and helps to meet stricter durability requirements. However, the current regulations across the markets are restricting the use of circular materials allowed in concrete buildings.” He added that his company’s product Geoprime, “does not require large investments, but there is regulation to be developed quickly so that new solutions and materials can be used."
Betolar says it has analysed over 200 side-streams other than slag and fly ash, providing flexibility to process locally available side-streams. It added that there are also significant CO2 savings to be found in logistics when manufacturing processes take place near the source of the industrial side-streams.
Finland: VTT Technical Research Centre subsidiary Carbonaide has concluded its seed funding round, having raised funds worth Euro1.8m. Lakan Betoni, which produces precast and ready-mix concrete, led the funding, along with utilities provider Vantaa Energy. Carbonaide will use the funds to build an industrial pilot plant for its carbon neutral precast concrete product at an existing precast concrete plant in Hollola. The plant will bind captured CO2 in the product at atmospheric pressure. The process generates 50% lower CO2 emissions than precast concrete production using ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Suitable raw materials include ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), green liquor dregs and bio-ash. In trial production, the use of GGBFS gave Carbonaide's concrete a negative carbon footprint of -60kg/m3.
Other sources of loans and in-kind contributions included Finnish state innovation fund Business Finland.
After the initial shocking coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, came announcements of the most extensive sanctions in history by the EU, G7 nations and others against Russia. In the EU, this effectively deconsolidated companies' Russian subsidiaries, leaving decision makers with the choice whether to sell up or hold out for better times.1 Four Russian-facing EU cement producers - Buzzi Unicem, CRH, Heidelberg Materials and Holcim - finalised their strategic responses in March 2022.
One year on, on 15 March 2023, 666 (21%) of 3110 eligible multinationals have withdrawn from Russia, according to the KSE Institute.2 Ireland-based CRH led the cement sector exit. It abandoned its Finland-based subsidiary Rudus' ready-mix concrete joint venture, LujaBetomix, on 2 March 2022. Switzerland-based Holcim took longer, but affected its exit on 14 December 2022, agreeing to sell Holcim Russia to local management. One condition of the sale was a rebrand (to Cementum, in February 2023) to withdraw the Holcim name from Russia. Unlike CRH, Holcim's Russian business included multiple cement plants - though the producer stated that it contributed less than 1% of group sales during 2021.
The KSE Institute uses the equivocal label of 'waiting' for companies which have paused investments, or scaled back operations, in Russia, while retaining their subsidiaries. This applies to 500 companies globally (16% of the pre-war total). Germany-based Heidelberg Materials acted swiftly to freeze further investments in HeidelbergCement Russia on 10 March 2022. At that time, its three cement plants were in winter shutdown. In terms of capacity, the 4.7Mt/yr-capacity Heidelberg Materials Russia constitutes 2.8% of Heidelberg Materials. In 2022, Heidelberg Materials suffered a Euro102m impairment on account of its Russian business. CEO Dominik von Achten, announcing the freeze, had described the subsidiary as a 'pure local business with no imports or exports.' Its website has since come offline, but the corporate structure presumably maintains in its frozen isolation.
1220 global multinationals - 39% of all those previously operating in Russia - are still 'continuing operations.' Among these is Buzzi Unicem. Having decided that 12 months was long enough, the Ukrainian National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) placed Italy-based Buzzi Unicem on its list of Russian war sponsors on 8 March 2023 for the actions of its subsidiary SLK Cement. A scathing denouncement accompanied the listing, in which the NAPC set out its main charges. It accused Buzzi Unicem of:
1. Expanding its business in Russia since the invasion;
2. Supplying its products to Russian state-owned businesses, including energy suppliers Rosatom and Rosneft;
3. Voicing support for the invasion via its social media presence.
The NAPC concluded “Buzzi Unicem's continued business in Russia means direct support and sponsorship of terrorism by Russia.”
Buzzi Unicem responded in no uncertain terms that these allegations are untrue: it has no business in Russia, and the entity bearing its logo on its (SLK Cement's) website is entirely independent in its decision-making and commercial actions.
This goes to the root of what it means to be a subsidiary of a corporation. Buzzi Unicem seeks to define the relationship as beginning and ending in operational involvement. Yet Buzzi Unicem and other corporations have invested large sums in businesses like SLK Cement. According to the NAPC, Buzzi Unicem paid Euro62m in taxes alone in Russia between 2016 and 2021. Whether they have elected to 'continue operations,' 'wait' or write in favourable buy-back options into sales contracts, as has happened in other industries, companies can be expected to seek to return to their investment.
As such, it is not entirely surprising that Buzzi Unicem should have followed up its rebuttal with a defence of SLK Cement. It stated "SLK Cement is a Russian domiciled entity operating exclusively in that country and therefore subject to domestic legislation. Payment of taxes and having employees being mobilised to the army are not discretionary decisions, rather legal obligations within the Russian jurisdiction."
In the decision to sell or hold, multinationals face the usual considerations: can they afford to yield their market share to other - less conscientious - competitors? Or, in this instance, those from Türkiye, India and China, whose potential investments are unrestrained by sanctions? Even as Holcim thrashed out its exit deal in October 2022, China-based West China Cement announced plans for a new US$260m, 1.2Mt/yr cement plant in Tatarstan, Volga Federal District. Meanwhile, Cemros (formerly Eurocement) is carrying out a Euro3m mill upgrade at its Lipetsk integrated cement plant in Central Federal District, which will increase the plant's capacity by 20% upon commissioning in early 2023. Between them, Central Federal District and Volga Federal District host four former Holcim cement plants.
12 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an onslaught of withdrawals has shrunk, but not collapsed, the Russian economy.3 The Russian government insists that cement demand remains high (up by 2.1% year-on-year to 58.3Mt during the first 11 months of 2022, according to the Russian cement association Soyuzcement).4 The country has substituted new sources of imports for those lost since the beginning of the invasion, the government claims. It is even preparing for a cement shortage from 2024 onward by 'further developing domestic production capacities.'
Far from shrinking, Russian cement production rose by approximately 2.5% year-on-year to 60.7Mt in 2022.4, 5 The two aforementioned districts - Central Federal District and Volga Federal District - contributed a healthy 15.3Mt (25%) and 13.4Mt (22%) respectively. If the statistics are to be believed, the EU's recalled producers are missing out on a bonanza.
At the same time, all four EU-based producers face the parallel burden of increased costs in their key markets, as sanctions keep energy prices at an all-time high, and nowhere more so than in Europe. These sanctions purport to target Russian businesses and individuals, but their bite is far less discriminating. Companies may well wonder why they are being penalised by governments whose policies failed to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the first place.
We have no idea what will happen in Ukraine and Russia in the rest of 2023, but we can be sure it will be uncertain territory for the two countries’ cement producers. Those with (former) assets in the Russian market will have to continue their delicate balancing act.
1. European Commission, 'Frequently Asked Questions,' 16 March 2022, https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2022/march/tradoc_160079.pdf
2. KSE Institute, 'Stop Doing Business with Russia,' 15 March 2023, https://leave-russia.org/leaving-companies?flt%5B147%5D%5Beq%5D%5B%5D=9062
3. European Council, 'Infographic - Impact of sanctions on the Russian economy ,' 9 March 2023, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanctions-russian-economy/
4. Soyuzcement, 'Cement Review,' December 2022, https://soyuzcem.ru/documents/%D0%A6%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B7%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8C%202022.pdf
5. BusinessStat, 'In 2022, 60.7 million tons of cement were produced in Russia,' 21 February 2023, https://marketing.rbc.ru/articles/14025/