Displaying items by tag: Germany

Germany: Hendrik Rahms will be supporting Loesche ThermoProzess GmbH (LTP) in technical sales and in the product development of thermal applications. After working as a process engineer and project manager for several years at Brinkmann Industrielle Feuerungs-Systeme GmbH, Rahms is very familiar with the products of burner and process technology as well as the customer requirements in the industry.

Africa: With effect from 1 August 2014, Demelza Mulligan has assumed the management position of Haver Southern Africa. After having completed her Master’s Degree from the Polytechnic University of Münster in Germany, she worked for the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in South Africa.

The business administration specialist joined Haver Southern Africa in 2013 as its marketing manager. Mulligan will succeed Joachim Hoppe, who directed Haver Southern Africa for three years and who laid the foundation for positive future business development for southern Africa. Hoppe is returning to his work at the Oelde-Germany headquarters, where he will found the new business unit of Bergbau / Mining.

Germany: Dirk Hoke took over as CEO of the Large Drives Business Unit of the Siemens Drive Technologies Division on 1 July 2014. Large Drives develops, manufactures and markets products, systems, solutions and services for drive engineering in industrial and infrastructure applications as well as sectors such as marine engineering, mining, cement, pulp and paper.

Hoke, a 45 year-old graduate engineer, joined Siemens in 1996 and started his career at the Transportation Systems Division. Subsequently Hoke held management posts in rail electrification, traction technology, and power supplies at Siemens locations in Germany and other countries. After serving for several years as CEO of Siemens' Cluster Africa and Siemens Morocco, in 2011 he took over leadership of the Industry Solutions Division before being appointed to head the Siemens Division Customer Services in October 2011.

Germany: Andre Tissen has been appointed manager of the cement business unit at Beumer Group effective from October 2013.

His responsibilities include managing Beumer's cement competency centre at the company's headquarters in Beckum, marketing Beumer's product portfolio, developing Beumer's sales team, optimising the company's sales structure and coordinating communication between the company's factories around the world.

Tissen, aged 43, has previously held various sales positions in the cement industry. Before joining Beumer, Tissen worked as Sales Manager, Europa & Key Accounts, at a conveyor equipment specialist.

Germany: Reinhold Festge, Managing Partner of Haver & Boecker, has been elected as the new president of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) at a gathering of its members in Stuttgart on 18 October 2013. He succeeds Thomas Lindner of the Groz-Beckert KG in Albstadt who served as president of the VDMA since 2010. Karl Haeusgen and Carl Martin Welcker were elected as vice presidents.

Festge, born in 1945, originally trained as a doctor before he majored in Business Administration and then became managing director of Haver & Beumer Latinoamericana in Brazil. From 1985 to 1987 he served as the managing director of Haver Filling Systems in the US. In 1987 he became a partner of Haver & Boecker.

Festge is a member of the restricted board and sits on the main board of the VDMA. From 1998 to 2004 he was chairman of the VDMA professional association for construction and building material machinery. He was chairman of the VDMA state federation of North Rhine Westphalia from 2005 to 2011.

Cemex's decision to head deeper into eastern Europe as part of the Cemex-Holcim asset swap announced this week suggests some nerve. Cement production levels started to fall in the region from 2012, according to Cembureau figures, with continued problems reported so far by the multinational cement producers in 2013. Cemex seems likely to lose money from the start with its new assets in the Czech Republic.

In more detail, Cemex will acquire all of Holcim's assets in the Czech Republic, which include a 1.1Mt/yr cement plant, four aggregates quarries and 17 ready-mix plants. In return Holcim will give Cemex Euro70m and Cemex will give Holcim its assets in western Germany including one cement plant and two grinding mills that encompass a total capacity of 2.5Mt/yr, one slag granulator, 22 aggregates quarries and 79 ready-mix plants.

Cemex must believe that it can wait out the recovery of the construction sector in eastern Europe or make savings from having a more easterly spread of assets. Certainly Cemex said in its press release on the asset swap that its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) would start to rise from US$20m to US$30m from 2014.

The question for the buyers at Cemex who considered this deal is whether the construction market has bottomed out in the Czech Republic yet. According to World Bank figures, following the 2008 financial crisis Czech Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell to a low of US$197bn in 2009, rose again until 2011 but then fell to US$196bn in 2012. Currently the Czech National Bank is anticipating a further fall in growth in 2013. Meanwhile, data from a third quarter 2013 Czech construction sector analysis by CEEC Research reported that a drop of at least 4.7% was expected in 2013 with a follow-on decline of 2.7% in 2014.

Possibly one deal-maker for Cemex was the prospect of combined operations with Holcim in Spain across cement, aggregates and ready-mix. Similar to the Lafarge-Tarmac joint-venture in the UK, the move offers reduced risk in a declining western European market. How the Spanish competition authorities will respond remains to be seen. Elsewhere on the continent this week the decision by the Belgian Competition Council to fine the Belgian cement sector shows an example of behaviour the Spanish authorities will want to avoid.

Germany: Dr Michael Mutz has been appointed the head of cement sales at Aumund Fördertechnik. In his new role Mutz will oversee sales of both new equipment and retrofits. The new position will be in addition to Mutz's exisiting job as head of the Mineral Processing division (previously Mining & Minerals), which he assumed in April 2012. Aumund specialises in conveying and storage for the cement industry

Germany: Minister Eveline Lemke has presented a medal for outstanding commitment to the economy in Rhineland-Palatinate to Irene Scheidweiler, one of the joint founders of Vecoplan. Lemke described Scheidweiler as a model for younger generations.

Scheidweiler founded the recycling technology firm based in Bad Merienberg in 1969, when she was aged 22. In 1995 Vecoplan AG became a subsidiary of MAX Automation AG of Dusseldorf. Today the company employs more than 400 staff at locations in Germany, the US, UK, Austria and Spain.

Congratulations to Cemex for their work on alternative fuels in Germany. In April 2013 Cemex reached an alternative fuels substitution rate of over 80% at its German cement plants, with the Kollenbach plant beating 90%. Impressive stuff.

The German cement industry as a whole is already one of the leaders in the industry for alternative fuels use, reaching levels above 60% in 2010. This compares favourably with, for example, the UK's (high) rate of 40% in 2011 and the Cembureau average rate of 28% for its 27 European member states in 2009.

To show how fast the change in alternative fuels usage has been in Germany, in 2000 the rate was around 25%. For Cembureau members it was about 10.5% in 2000. Cemex's achievement at Kollenbach even surpasses HeidelbergCement's alternative fuels rate of 85% that it achieved across the border in 2011, at its Eerste Nederlandse Cement Industrie (ENCI) plant in the Netherlands.

Globally, Cemex seems likely to meet its 2015 target of 35% alternative fuels substitution rate. The other large multinational cement producers have similar plans in place. For example, Lafarge intends to reach 50% usage by 2020.

For more information on the German cement industry, read our feature 'Germany: A modern force in cement' in the May 2013 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

This week we present the 100th issue of Global Cement Weekly, Global Cement's weekly cement industry news digest. To mark the occasion we would like to know what you think about what we are doing. Let us know by taking the Global Cement Reader Survey 2013. All completed submissions will be entered in a draw to win an iPad Mini.

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Germany: Loesche has announced that Andreas Huster has joined Loesche Automatisierungstechnik GmbH (LAG) in Luenen as its sales director. He joined Loesche in July 2012.

Huster is 37 years old, married and was formerly responsible for distribution, sales and marketing of automation technology at Miebach group in Dortmund. At Loesche Huster will take over the responsibility for all clients and develop new market potential for LAG. Huster will also support projects for Loesche GmbH in Duesseldorf and their subsidiaries worldwide.