Displaying items by tag: GCW288
Cembureau lobbies for revised European emissions trading scheme
07 February 2017Belgium: Cembureau, the European cement association, has lobbied members of the European Parliament with its opinion that the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) must maintain free allowances at the level of best-performers in order to achieve real emission reductions whilst maintaining a competitive industry in Europe. It expressed its views ahead of a scheduled vote in the plenary session of the Parliament in February 2017. One of its key demands was that fairness should be a key principle of policy making and that jobs in one sector are just as important as those in other sectors.
Cembureau called for the proposal to amend the EU ETS to ensure that all energy-intensive industries are on the carbon leakage list and all installations receive a free allocation based on ‘ambitious but realistic’ benchmarks, and benefit from free allocation based on actual production. It wants a sufficient number of free allocations for energy intensive industries at risk of carbon leakage to be made available, hence the auction share should not be higher than 52%. It also wants no further burden to be imposed on EU-ETS sectors. The 43% reduction objective and the 2.2% linear reduction factor for phase IV should not be further increased. Lastly, it has asked for support for innovation focus on energy intensive industries with an extension to cover the whole range of low carbon technologies including industrial carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). The Innovation Fund should be fully financed from the auctioning share.
In response to an amendment made by the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee (ENVI) the cement association said that it did not believe that this proposal could work. Its main concerns were: that introducing such a mechanism with a consequential loss of free allowances could create legal uncertainty and hamper further investments by the cement sector in Europe; that it would be impossible to measure the CO2 performance of third country producers; an overall lack of clarity as to how such scheme would operate; serious concerns about World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatibility; that application to a few sectors would only lead to discrimination in the downstream market where cement competes with other building materials (steel, glass, wood, asphalt) that are not subject to such a scheme; and that the suggested scheme would lead to a competitive disadvantage for European cement producers on export markets where local cement players are not subject to similar CO2 constraints.
Cembureau also used the opportunity to highlight some of the research projects the local sector is undertaking to improve its environmental performance, reduce CO2 emissions and improve energy efficiency.
New EU border tariffs will boost low-carbon cement
07 February 2017Belgium: Environmental campaign group Sandbag says that research it has conducted has shown that proposed tariffs can protect European Union (EU) cement from ‘dirty’ competition and reward EU companies that produce low-carbon cement. It has released its data ahead of the a vote by the European Parliament in mid-February 2017 to decide on whether to adopt a new border adjustment mechanism (BAM) proposed by the Parliament’s Environment Committee.
The non-government organisation says that a BAM would require importers of cement and clinker into the EU to surrender emissions permits corresponding to the embedded carbon in their products, in the same way that domestic EU cement manufacturers are required to do at present. At the same time, cement, would no longer receive free allocation.
Previous research carried out by Sandbag suggests that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has driven cement emissions higher, whilst other European and national regulations and product standards discriminate against low-carbon cement companies. Over the last decade, the EU carbon market may have delivered more than Euro4.7bn in ‘windfall’ profits to cement companies. However, Sandbag say that border taxes could set cement producers on a level playing field by harmonising incentives to reduce product emissions within the EU.
“The EU can now implement a pragmatic and politically feasible solution for boosting low-carbon cement in Europe, and ending the scandal of enormous windfall profits to cement companies. However, this isn’t simply about cement. In a world of developing carbon markets with no unified set of rules, it is necessary to account for discrepancies in order to avoid offshoring of production,” said Wilf Lytton, an analyst at Sandbag.
Cement sales fall by 10.7% in 2016 in Argentina
07 February 2017Argentina: Sales of cement have fallen by 10.7% year-on-year in 2016, according to data from the National Statistics and Censuses Institute (INDEC). Overall, the domestic construction sector declined by 12.7% in 2016
ACC sales drop in 2016
06 February 2017India: ACC’s net sales have fallen by 4% year-on-year to US$1.63bn in 2016 from US$1.70bn in 2015. Sales volumes of cement fell by 2.7% to 23.0Mt from 23.6Mt and operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 7.5% to US$211m from US$229m. However, profit after tax rose by 2.7% to US$90m from US$87.5m. The company described the market conditions in 2016 as ‘challenging.’ It added that the economic slowdown following demonetisation was easing.
“The highlight of the year was strong cost saving measures, especially on fuel flexibility and raw materials. Focusing on our high quality, high performance product portfolio played an important role in the overall performance for the year. We are encouraged by the government's plans to invest in infrastructure," said Neeraj Akhoury, Managing Director and chief executive officer of ACC.
The cement producer’s 1.35Mt/yr grinding plant at Sindri, Jharkhand was commissioned at the end October 2016, joining a 2.79Mt/yr integrated plant at Jamul, Chhattisgarh which was commissioned earlier in 2016. The new plants are expected to strengthen ACC’s market presence in the east of the country.
Pakistan: The UK’s Asian Precious Minerals has announced plans to build a US$400m cement plant in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Asian Precious Minerals’ chief executive officer (CEO) Nadim Khan, Executive Director Peter Frost, Country Manager Irshad Ali Khokhar and Jason Mumtaz of the British High Commission met with provincial Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to discuss the plans, according to the Express Tribunal newspaper. The project hopes to take advantage of infrastructure demand being driven by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Vietnam cement exports drop to 14.7Mt in 2016
06 February 2017Vietnam: Data from the General Department of Vietnam Customs has shown that exports of cement fell by 7.1% year-on-year to 14.7Mt in 2016 and by 16% year-on-year to US$561m in value. Bangladesh and the Philippines remained the major importers of cement and clinker from Vietnam in 2016, according to the Vietnam News newspaper. The Philippines imported 3.8Mt of cement and clinker worth US$185m from Vietnam in 2016 and Bangladesh imported 4.7Mt worth US$141m, accounting for 33% and 25.1% respectively of the country’s total clinker and cement exports in 2016. Increased competition in export markets has been blamed on rival products from Thailand and China.
Corporacion Socialista del Cemento expects 6Mt output in 2017
06 February 2017Venezuela: The Corporacion Socialista del Cemento expects to produce 6Mt of cement in 2017 to meet national demand. Marco Tulio Diaz, president of the construction federation Federación Bolivariana de la Construcción, said that distribution channels are to be reinforced, according to the El Universal newspaper. He added the country expects to export 0.3Mt of cement in 2017. In 2016 about 55% of cement production despatched to the popular housing program Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela and 45% was reserved for the private sector.
Greenbank supplies feeder system to Hanson Cement’s Padeswood plant
06 February 2017UK: Greenbank has supplied a GWF feeder system to Hanson Cement’s Padeswood plant in Flintshire. The system is designed to feed raw materials into the processing plant at a predetermined rate. The upgrade is part of a recent series of expansions.
“The constant and reliable feed rate of the GWF feeder is achieved by having a shear gate to set a constant material bed depth for the given particle size combined with an inverter drive to control the feeder belt speed,” said Rod Molyneux, Product Sales Engineer at Greenbank.
Greenbank Group has previously supplied the plant with wear-resistant pipework and a pipe system for a new shredded refuse fuel line into a processing kiln.
Cementos Bio Bio to sell minor stake at auction
03 February 2017Chile: Cementos Bio Bio plans to sell a 5.38% share in its business at auction on 3 February 2017. The cement producer hopes to raise US$16.8m in the transaction, according to La Tercera newspaper. The transaction will be handled by Credicorp.
Siam Cement Group to build third cement plant in Cambodia
02 February 2017Cambodia: Thailand’s Siam Cement Group (SCG) is preparing to open its third cement plant in Battambang province in 2018. Chan Sophal, the governor of Battambang, said that SCG started building the plant in 2016 and has almost completed it, according to the Khmer Times newspaper. SCG is a majority shareholder in local producer Kampot Cement. Once operational the plant will have a production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr.