Displaying items by tag: Germany

Germany: Mining equipment supplier Halbach & Braun has announced its 100th anniversary, and says that it has postponed an official ceremony for the event until after Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are over.

Sales and marketing director Uwe Hackenberger gave, “very special thanks to our partners, the Yangquan Coal Industry Group, whose support paved the way for us to enter a new home market. Together and strong enough for the future, we are now able to supply complete mining systems from one source.” He added, “We would also like to thank our employees, suppliers, banks and state and local politicians who have always supported us with all their strength and accompanied us on our journey through the century.”

Germany: Robecco says that it took over the inerting business from Yara on 1 September 2020. The acquisition is intended to support customers and their future needs. The company says that combination of Yara’s inerting systems and robecco’s monitoring and control technology is a ‘unique tailor-made solution’ to maximise safety in preventive explosion protection.

With over 25 years’ experience, Robecco has become a specialist in preventive explosion protection and can provide complete packages of equipment for monitoring, control and CO₂ / N₂ inerting systems from a single source and one interface according to the relevant international and European norms and rules. The company holds long-established business relationships with customers worldwide providing preventive explosion protection solutions and automation services for the integration of explosion protection solutions into customers’ systems.

North America: Germany-based Schenck Process has awarded a contract for the supply of “fitting connectors, spigots and bulk bag loaders to one of its North American plants” to original equipment manufacturing (OEM) company BFM Global. It says it will integrate BFM Global products in pneumatic conveying, dust collection, weighing and feeding systems produced at the plant, all of which it sells to the cement industry.

Americas regional president Jay Brown said, “Entering this partnership with BFM Global aligns with our strategy of providing industry recognised parts and system components to our customer base. Working with a company that understands the challenges of bulk material handling strengthens our solutions capabilities. We look forward to what this partnership will bring to Schenck Process and the customers we serve.”

Germany: Schmersal has presented the prototype of the HDS switchgear wireless data transmitter for use with extended conveyor systems. The company says that it developed the products, prototypes of which are still undergoing laboratory tests, in partnership with customer-specific hardware developer Aconno. It says, “The switchgear unites a range of functions into a single platform, making it suitable for an extremely wide range of applications. Typical application areas include emergency-stop shutdown, belt misalignment monitoring in the transport of bulky materials, end position monitoring in steel making and level monitoring in material silos.”

Germany: Cemex Zement has announced the start of carbon-neutral building materials development at its 1.9Mt/yr Rüdersdorf, Brandenburg cement plant. Called Vision Rüdersdorf, the project consists of, “the comprehensive investigation of various approaches to breakthrough technologies in order to prevent process-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) from entering the atmosphere, but to use it for beneficial purposes. The investigation areas can be divided into capture, storage or use of CO₂. This will help towards Cemex’s target of 55% CO₂ emissions reduction across Europe by 2030 and its commitment to deliver carbon-neutral concrete by 2050.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Rüdiger Kuhn said, “For years, sustainable success has been achieved here in the reduction of fossil fuels and in the selection of alternative recipe ingredients for cement. The experienced team is always looking for possible improvements. When it came to determining the best possible CO₂ emission values, the Rüdersdorf plant was always at the forefront of the European cement industry and has thus also earned an excellent reputation in the global Cemex organisation.”

In order to realise Vision Rüdersdorf, the producer has partnered with companies from other industries. Managing director and plant manager Stefan Schmorleiz said, “In an interesting approach, the CO₂ that we capture is used as a raw material for downstream processes in the chemical industry. Another approach is to innovate in the storage of CO₂. With these efforts, and our commitment to review and invest in these technologies, Cemex Zement is making a contribution to the decarbonisation of the cement industry.”

India: Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha, has attended the inauguration of Ramco Cement’s new cement grinding plant at Haridaspur. The unit had a cost of just under US$100m and has created 105 direct jobs. A LM 46.2+2 CS type vertical roller mill with a capacity of 3750kW has ordered from Germany-based Loesche in 2018 for the project. The cement producer says that the plant is designed to be ‘totally dust free,’ including bag filters designed to ensure emission levels below 30mg/m³.

Togo: Cimenterie de Côte Ouest-Africaine (CimCo) says that it has hired Germany-based Intercem Engineering and Gebr. Pfeiffer for the supply and installation of a 2.5Mt/yr-capacity integrated cement plant in Lomé, Maritime Region. Togo First News has reported that the company has secured a US$35.8m loan from Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD) towards construction of the US$179m plant.

CimCo said, “The targeted goal is to contribute to the satisfaction of cement demand in Togo and the region by taking advantage of the geographic location of the port of Lomé, as well as to contribute to the country's economic growth by boosting the competitiveness of the industrial sector along with performances of the infrastructure sector.”

Germany: HeidelbergCement says that it has supplied concrete for the construction of an 80m² two-storey detached house in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The concrete contains i.tech 3D, a ground sulphoaluminate clinker developed by HeidelbergCement subsidiary Italcementi for use as an additive in concrete for 3D printing. Engineering & Innovation head Jennifer Scheydt said, “The development of a cement-bound material for 3D printing is a major challenge. It should be easy to pump and extrude. It must also quickly develop sufficient load-bearing capacity so that the lower layers do not give out under the load of the upper layers. At the same time, the bond between the layers must be ensured.”

The property, the first of its kind, will consist of three-shelled insulation-filled walls when completed in late 2020.

Germany: The supervisory board of KHD has appointed Jianlong Shen as chairman of the management board (CEO) from 1 October 2020 until 30 September 2023. Current chairman Yizhen Zhu has resigned for personal reasons.

Germany: HeidelbergCement has presented a new business strategy, involving an accelerated climate action plan, called Beyond 2020. Under the Strategy, the company will aim to reduce its specific carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 10% to 525kg/t of cement by 2025 from 585kg/t in 2019. Its financial targets over the period are “a significant increase in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin by 300 basis points and return on invested capital (ROIC) to clearly above 8%. The group says that it will target a leverage ratio between 1.5 and 2 times its result from current operations in 2020.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Dominik von Achten said, “We see climate change and digitalisation as the two central challenges of the future for society and for our company. As one of the world's leading building materials producers, we have the ambition and the innovative strength to actively shape this change in a pioneering role. At the same time, we see further optimisation potential in our plants and processes. Ecology and economy are not contradictory. Our new medium-term targets for 2025 illustrate this claim.”