Displaying items by tag: GCW409

There was a glimmer of good news visible through the Delhi smog this week with the launch of a market-based emissions trading scheme (ETS) for particulate matter (PM). A pilot has started at Surat in Gujarat. The scheme will apply to 350 industries in the locality and it will be scrutinised for wider rollout in the country.

China robustly started to tackle its industrial PM emitters a few years ago although the work remains on-going. In its wake India has increasingly made the wrong sort of headlines with horrifically high dust emissions. Delhi, for example, reportedly had PM2.5 emissions of over 440µg/m³ in January 2019. To give this some context, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) annual upper guideline figure for safe human exposure is 10µg/m³. Research by the Financial Times newspaper suggested that more than 40% of the Indian population is subject to annual PM2.5 emissions of over 50µg/m³.

Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) research reckons that if India were able to meet its national PM2.5 standard of 40µg/m³ then its population would live 1.8 years longer or 4.3 years longer if it met the WHO guideline level. The current situation is an unnecessary tragedy. In strictly structural terms the country’s productivity is being thrown away by damaging the health of its workforce. For comparison amongst other major cement producing countries, AQLI data placed China’s PM2.5 emissions at 39µg/m³, Indonesia at 22µg/m³, Vietnam at 20µg/m³ the US at 9µg/m³. These figures cover all industries in different conditions and climates. If the US can do it, why not the others?

Back on trading schemes, the famous ETS at the moment is the European one for CO₂ emissions. Similar schemes are slowly appearing around the world as governments look at what the European Union (EU) did right and wrong. For example, South Africa started up a carbon tax in early June 2019. Yet as the supporting documents by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) point out there have been a variety of ETS systems’ over the years. The US’s Acid Rain Program is generally seen to have achieved significant reductions in SO2 and NOx emissions although the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) has continued this work. Chile even ran its own PM ETS in the 1990s although the outcomes have been disputed.

One problem with a CO₂ ETS, and anthropomorphic or man-made climate change in general, is that it is intangible. Even if sea levels deluge major coastal cities, rising mean temperatures reduce agricultural yields and human populations contract sharply, people will still be arguing over the research and the causes. The beauty of a PM ETS is that if it works you can literally see and feel the results. A famous example here is the UK’s Clean Air Act in the 1950s that banished the fog/smog that London used to be famous for.

The Gujarat PM ETS is a pilot, the results of which will be considered by researchers from a number of US-based universities and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Explicitly, the study plans to use a randomised control trial to compares its results against the command and control style approach used in the rest of the country. On the cement-side various Indian news stories have emerged as state pollution boards have increasingly started fining producers for emission limit breaches. Clearly the government is taking dust emissions seriously. Reduction is long overdue.

Cyprus: Vassiliko Cement has appointed George Savva as its general manager with effect from 1 August 2019. In addition, Antonios Antoniou, the executive chairman of the company, will retain his position as chief executive officer (CEO) for a transitional period of five months until 31 December 2019. After the end of the transition period, he will retain the position of the executive chairman.

Savva, aged 48 years, is a Cypriot national. He holds a bachelors degree in Accounting and Finance from London South Bank University in the UK and later became a Chartered Certified Accountant with membership of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC). He has also attended the LEAP Executive Programme of INSEAD Business School.

He worked for Deloitte in auditing and business advisory for four years before working as an internal auditor for two years. He became the chief financial officer (CFO) for Vassiliko Cement in 2001 and became the deputy general manger in 2017.

Germany: HeidelbergCement has appointed Christoph Beumelburg as Director Group Communication & Investor Relations. He succeeds Andreas Schaller, who has left the organisation.

Beumelburg started his career at BASF in 1995. He has since held different management positions both domestically and abroad, including Director Investor Relations USA. In 2010 he moved to the automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler, where he held the position of Senior Vice President Communications, Marketing and Investor Relations. He holds an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Kaiserslautern.

Switzerland: Thomas Schmidheiny says he has reduced his share in LafargeHolcim to 7.2% from 10.9% to diversify his investment portfolio. He said that the decision was part of his ‘retirement and heritage’ planning, according to Reuters. He has no plans to minimise his stake any further.

Schmidheiny was made honorary chairman of LafargeHolcim in 2018 when he stepped down from the board. He began his career at Holcim in 1970. He became a member of the executive committee six years later and served as chief executive officer (CEO) between 1978 and 2001. After joining the board of directors in 1978 he was chairman of the board of directors from 1984 until 2003. Later, he was a key part of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge that completed in 2015.

France/Syria: Lafarge SA and three of its former executives are appealing against accusations of crimes against humanity. The Court of Appeal is expected to address the indictment in late June 2019, according to the Agence France Press. The former executives involved include Bruno Lafont, former chief executive offcier (CEO) of Lafarge, former safety director Jean-Claude Veillard, and one of the former directors of its Syrian subsidiary, Frédéric Jolibois. The Presecutor General has supported some arguments of the defence team.

If the appeal is succesful the legal case will focus instead on the financial aspects of Lafarge’s conduct in Syria between 2011 and 2014. It has been accussed of financing terrorism through indirect payments to extremist groups to keep its Jalabiya cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria.

India: Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has been awarded an order to build a cement plant in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh. The end client was not named but UltraTech Cement said in mid-June 2019 that it had received approval from the environment ministry to build a 6Mt/yr integrated cement plant in the same location. The plant will have a 60MW captive power plant and a 15MW waste heat recovery-based power unit. No value for the order has been disclosed.

Bolivia: Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia’s (ECEBOL) at Caracollo in Oruro will start commercial operation in August 2019. The US$306m plant will have a production capacity of 1.3Mt/yr, according to Radio FM Bolivia. A consortium of Sacyr, Imasa and Polysius have worked on the project.

Argentina: Loma Negra says it has started to close its Barker cement plant because it has been unable to reach an agreement with the union over staff redundancies. The company alleges that the union would not accept its plans to convert the unit into a grinding and bagging plant, according to El Cronista newspaper. The plant will now move to a single shift of operation with 24 employees whilst plans for its final closure are implemented.

US: A fire broke out in the preheater tower at Buzzi Unicem’s Stockertown cement plant in Pennsylvania on 7 June 2019. No staff injuries were reported at the plant, although a fireman required medical treatment, according to the Express-Times newspaper. Fire crews were on the site for around two hours.

Guyana: Concrete manufacturer KSM is taking legal action against the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for over valuing the cost of cement imports. It alleges that the GRA charged it US$16.6m too much for five shipments between January and March 2019, according to the Stabroek News newspaper.

It grew its imports from 2015 to 2018 and it imported 24,480t of cement from Domicem in the Dominican Republic in 2018. However, KSM says that the GRA increased the declared value of cement by over 40% in the second half of 2018 without offering any ‘reasonable or justifiable grounds’ for so doing. KSM says it imported its shipments in 2019 at the lower rate and this was approved by customs. The GRA then demanded the shortfall from KSM in May 2019.