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Sri Lanka: The Industry and Commerce Ministry has queried the sale of Holcim Lanka, LafargeHolcim’s business on the island. Industry and Commerce Ministry Secretary TMKB Tennakoon contacted Holcim Lanka in March 2016 to point out that the government has not benefitted from deals with the cement producer to allow it to build a quarry and that it can control attempts to sell some of its assets, according to the Daily News newspaper.

Tennakoon has raised the issue that the Sri Lankan government is not making profit out of a lease agreement, started in 1993, which gave Holcim Lanka mineral rights to a quarry in Aruwakkalu, Puttalam. In addition the cement producer was granted a 12-year tax holiday on funds borrowed from within Sri Lanka, the ministry claims. The ministry has informed Holcim Lanka that it is in the process of evaluating the terms and conditions of the agreement ‘in order to gain more benefits to the industry and the country’ and warns Holcim Lanka that in the terms of Section 4(b) of the agreement, Holcim Lanka cannot transfer or sub-let the premises without the consent of the government-owned Cement Corporation.

LafargeHolcim announced that it was leaving the cement business in Sri Lanka in early June 2016. The Industry and Commerce Ministry was expressed its interest in buying the local company.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos has inaugurated a new cement plant at Primavera in Pará state. The US$258m plant has a production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr. It will serve the North and Northeast regions of Brazil.

“This plant in Primavera is part of Votorantim Cimentos’ major investment plan. Despite the challenging situation in Brazil, we are moving forward with our long-term vision and our confidence in the development of the country,” said Walter Dissinger, CEO of Votorantim Cimentos. Construction of the plant also included a social investment programme in the local area that invested US$3m towards a local library, schools and a health centre.

The new operation is part of the company’s expansion plan, which will increase its global capacity to approximately 59Mt/yr by the end of 2018, in line with the company’s plan of geographic diversification. This expansion plan adds to investments of US$3.6bn made between 2007 and 2015, which resulted in a 94% increase in global production capacity.

The investment plan to 2018 also includes expansions at Charlevoix in the US, Sivas in Turkey and a new cement plant at Yacuses in Bolivia. The company is also expanding in the San Luis region of Argentina.

India: Shree Cement has completed the expansion of its cement grinding plant at Aurangabad in Bihar. The plant increased its production capacity to 3.6Mt/yr from 2Mt/yr.

Iran: Shahryar Geravandi, the manager of Saman Cement at Kermanshah in western Iran, has warned that Iraq's high import tariffs on cement has put the Iranian cement industry in crisis. Geravandi said that Iranian cement plants now face overcapacity, according to the Tasnim News Agency. He added that finding new markets for the surplus cement would be hampered by high transport costs.

Pakistan: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued directives to the Hazara and Kohat administrations to stop production at two cement plants in breach of EPA regulations on dust pollution. Muhammad Bashir Khan, the director general of the EPA, has issued directives to shut down the Dewan Hattar Cement plant in Hattar and the Kohat Cement plant, according to the News International newspaper. Khan said that the Dewan Hattar plant had requested an eight-month period to install dust control measures but had failed to do so. The Kohat plant’s dust control unit is currently out of order.

India: Dalmia Bharat Cement has launched two new cement products in Odisha. The two new products - Dhalai Special Dalmia DSP Cement and Dalmia Cement – will be made available across 650 dealers and network partners in the state. Dalmia Bharat Group CEO Mahendra Singhi said that the product launch is expected to increase sales to US$221m from US$177m in the state, according to the Press Trust of India.

Dalmia Bharat Cement, which manages OCL India in Odisha, markets cement under the brand name of Konark. It has cement plants at Rajgangpur and Kapilas in the state. The group has set a sales target of about 75,000t/month for the two newly launched brands in Odisha. Its existing sales volumes across all product lines in the state are around 250,000t/month.

India: FLSmidth has signed a contract with Larsen & Toubro Limited for engineering, procurement and supply of equipment for a complete cement production line with a capacity of 3000t/day. The plant will be located in Ariyalur, approximately 300km south of Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The end client of the project is Tamil Nadu Cement Corporation Limited (TANCEM), a wholly owned undertaking of the Government of Tamil Nadu, with whom Larsen & Toubro Limited has an EPC contract. The order will be delivered over the next 16 months.

The order includes a complete range of equipment from crushing to the packing plant: ATOX® 35.0 vertical mill for raw grinding, ATOX® 20.0 vertical mill for coal grinding, Pyro Processing System with low-NOx ILC calciner, FLSmidth Cross-BarTM CB10 x 40 cooler and a UMS 5.0 x 15.0 ball mill for cement grinding. FLSmidth’s supply also includes equipment from product companies of FLSmidth, such as planetary gear units for vertical mills from FLSmidth MAAG Gear, bag filters and an electrostatic precipitator from
FLSmidth Airtech, packing plant from FLSmidth Ventomatic, a control system and plant automation from FLSmidth Automation and weighing and metering systems from FLSmidth Pfister.

UK: Flexicon has launched a new bulk bag-lifting frame with telescoping arms that accommodates bulk bags produced in a range of sizes. The lifting frame can be added to all BFC models of Flexicon's Bulk-Out discharger line or it can be used for up to 2t capacities to replace discharger lifting frames that use a hoist to position and suspend bulk bags.

The telescoping arms can be adjusted using clevis pins and safety clips to a range of settings to accommodate bulk bags from 81 - 119cm square at the upper sew seam. This adjustability also allows the lifting frame to work with rectangular bags. The frame is available in carbon steel with industrial coatings or stainless steel to industrial or sanitary standards.

Azerbaijan: In the five months of 2016, cement production in Azerbaijan decreased by 30.3%. This is primarily due to the fall in business activity and a reduction in public investment in the economy. In January - May 2016 cement production was 829,000t, according to the State Statistics Committee. Over the same period concrete plants produced just 177,000t of concrete, 60% less than for the comparable period of 2015.

Crimea: JSC Bakhchysarai Factory Stroyindustriya, the only cement producer in Crimea, is implementing a modernisation programme. The company intends to change from the wet process to the semi-dry process, increasing its cement production capacity to 1.2Mt/yr, while considerably reducing the cost of production.