Displaying items by tag: GCW403

Bangladesh: Alamgir Kabir has been appointed as the president of the Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA). His term covers the 2019 – 2020 and the 2020 – 2021 period, according to the Financial Express newspaper. Md Shahidullah, managing director of Metrocem Cement and chairman of Metrocem Group, and Zahir Uddin Ahmed, managing director of Confidence Cement, were elected the first and second vice-presidents of the BCMA respectively.

Romania: The Competition Council says it has found irregularities in the cement market. Following an investigation started in the autumn of 2018 it has revealed that the country’s three major producers – Holcim, CRH and HeidelbergCement – were operating with high profit margins and similar market share, according to Business News Europe. It noted that geographic distribution of customers around the three companies’ production facilities might support a hypothesis of market collusion. It also reported similar production capacity utilisation rates between the main producers despite different production capacities.

The Competition Council has not drawn any conclusions from the report. Previously, it said that if it does find any evidence of cartel-like behaviour it could apply a fine of up to 10% of company turnover.

Ukraine: Podilsky Cement’s revenue rose by 2.5% year-on-year to Euro92.3m in 2018. It reduced its loss by 25% to Euro16.2m, according to the Ukrainian News Agency. It produced 1.35Mt of cement. The company is a subsidiary of Ireland’s CRH.

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has resumed supplying cement to the East Coast Rail Link project. The cement producer has been asked to continue supplying the project until the end of 2019, according to the Star newspaper. The US$65m contract was originally agreed in March 2018 but then suspended in July 2018 when the government reviewed the project.

Argentina: Loma Negra is planning to make 100 staff redundant at its Barker cement plant in Buenos Aires. It employs 230 direct employees and 90 others at the site, according to Infobae. The cement producer says it is reducing staffing levels in order to adjust the plant’s production capacity to the local market. It has also threatened to close the plant entirely if it is unable to reach an agreement over the redundancies with the union.

India: Customers of Ambuja Cement have been deceived by a fake website pretending to take orders for the company. Victims of the fraud have notified the police in Mumbai, according to the Times of India newspaper. The fraudulent website obtained orders, raised invoices and promised delivery following the receipt of advance payment. When the customers failed to receive the goods they approached Ambuja Cement and the deception was revealed. So far around US$2500 has been reported lost.

Denmark: FLSmidth has launched ECS/UptimeGo, a downtime analysis product designed to increase plant uptime by identifying the causes of plant and equipment failures. Real-time dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs) enable the measurement of the real impact of machine failures interrupting the production. In addition, ECS/UptimeGo provides Pareto charts and the ability to monitor maintenance and reliability KPIs to give operators a picture of a downtime event and its causes.

ECS/UptimeGo can be integrated with existing process control systems and can be paired with FLSmidth ECS/ControlCenter for an automated process to gather all production stoppages. It also features a graphic interface that allows operators to document and analyse stoppages.

Russia: ExxonMobil says it has saved a limestone quarry Euro7900/yr by switching Hitachi excavators to its Mobil DTE 10 Excel46 hydraulic oil. The product extended oil drain intervals by 25% to 5000 hours. It also reduced filter replacements.

“Our field engineering services team worked with the customer to identify the most suitable lubricant. As a result of this, they suggested a switch to Mobil DTE 10 Excel 46 hydraulic oil, which was developed to provide a long oil life and minimise deposit formation, even in hydraulic systems operating in severe conditions,” said Sarp Degirmenci, EAME Offer Advisor at ExxonMobil.

Germany: Flender has increased the torque of its N-Arpex coupling product range with two new designs featuring eight and ten bolting points. N-Arpex now covers a diameter up to 988mm and a torque up to 2MNm. The compact design and enhanced bore capacities also enable a leap in size. A smaller coupling transmits a higher torque compared to the predecessor model. The steel disc coupling is suitable for use in drive applications including pumps, fans, compressors, generators, turbines, and paper and printing machines.

Other improvements include a more compact Flender conical bolt connection for the plate packs. With the two new N-Arpex couplings, Flender has introduced a modular system that increases the number of available types as well as reducing the number of components required. The three standard series of the predecessor Arpex merge into one N-Arpex series. The new series of couplings has also been designed for use in potentially explosive environments as defined in directive 2014/34/EU and fulfil the requirements of API610/ISO13709 and API671/ISO10441.

France: Vicat’s sales have risen due to its acquisition of Ciplan in Brazil. Its sales rose by 4.7% year-on-year to Euro600m in the first quarter of 2019 from Euro573m in the same period in 2018. However, adjusted for the acquisition, its sales remain stable. The group’s cement sales revenue fell by 1.4% to Euro302m when similarly adjusted. Its concrete and aggregate sales rose by 6.6% to Euro225m.

“The rise in prices across all zones has resulted in stable consolidated sales at constant scope and perimeter, despite strong volume erosions in Turkey as a result of the 2018 lira devaluation and of the consequences of highly adverse weather conditions in California. The integration of Ciplan in Brazil is on track amid conditions that are stabilising after several years of major consumption falls,” said chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Guy Sidos.

By region sales were strong in France, stable in the rest of Europe and Africa and poor in the Americas, Asia and Turkey. Poor weather in California dragged down sales in the US, competition was reported in India and an economic slowdown was reported in Turkey.