Displaying items by tag: Government

Pakistan: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has arranged hearings on 21 October 2020 over alleged environmental protection regulation violations by Dewan Cement and Lucky Cement at their respective Kamilpur and Karachi cement plants in the province. The provincial agency, “has expedited its monitoring activities throughout the province to manage different types of pollution at their source.”

Tanzania: The Ministry of Industry and Trade said it is working to connect natural gas supplies to the local cement industry to help reduce operation costs and ultimately reduce the cost of cement to consumers. "The government is looking for the best way to ensure that gas is easily available, especially for existing (cement) industries in the Coastal Zone," said Minister for Industry and Trade Innocent Bashungwa.

The minister has also held a joint meeting with Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (Investment) Angellah Kairuki and nine cement manufacturers, according to the Tanzania Daily News newspaper. The meeting covered issues such as poor roads, energy supplies and taxation.

In 2018 the government set cement prices both locally and for import.

Nigeria: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge Africa says that it has signed an agreement with the Cross River State government to build a 38km concrete road connecting its local cement plant to the wider network. Chief executive officer (CEO) Khaled El Dokani said the project was a major contribution of Lafarge to the state at large with the purpose of making the roads safer for the citizens. The road is intended to divert trucks away from a nearby city centre once it is completed.

India: The state of Odisha has announced a US$1.2bn infrastructure investment package aimed at “reviving the industrial economy, which has been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.” National Business Media News has reported that the plans, encompassing “micro, small, medium and large scale” projects across sectors including cement and steel production, renewable energy and IT and will create “huge job generation avenues” and significantly increase cement demand.

State governor Ganeshi Lal said, “The new industrial units will provide an added impetus to the confidence of investors in the industrial sector.”

Cuba/US: A court in Florida has accepted a request for damages worth US$270m from LafargeHolcim to over 20 parties from Cuba whose land was nationalised and subsequently had a cement plant built on it. The claim alleges that Switzerland-based Holderbank has held a stake in the partly-state owned Carlos Marx cement plant near Cienfuegos since 2001 via a deliberately “complex network of letterbox companies and transactions” in the Netherlands and Spain, according to the Tages Anzeiger newspaper. Holderbank later became Holcim and then LafargeHolcim.

The building materials producer’s alleged involvement may constitute a violation of the US embargo on trade with Cuba for companies active in the US. The claim has been aided by a clause in the US’s Cuban blockade law, activated by President Donald Trump, enabling Cubans to claim damages in US courts for expropriated property from private companies which profited from them.

US: The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) has signed a contract with drone supplier Botlink InSite to serve its drone surveying and mapping needs for management of aggregates used in building transport infrastructure.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Terri Zimmerman said, “We’re excited to add the NDDOT to our ever-growing list of customers. Our users see real cost savings by quickly getting accurate data, including reducing overproduction and underproduction.” She added that the drones can also serve cement companies in managing their raw materials stores.

France: The council of Paris has voted to withdraw permissions for a planned expansion to LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France’s Bercy concrete plant after protesters captured footage of a slurry spill that the company called ‘exceptional.’

Finanznachrichten News has reported that the council also voted to launch a “mission to reassess cement and building materials production by 2040” to preserve the local environment, as a result of which it expects the city to shift its reliance to imports of cement and concrete from surrounding areas.

Mexico: The total cement demand generated by infrastructure projects in 2020 will be 1.9Mt, down by 95% from 40Mt in 2019. The El Sol de Mexico newspaper has reported that the government plans to invest US$12.1bn in 32 projects throughout the course of 2020.

Cemex president Rogelio Zambrano welcomed the decision to continue investing in infrastructure, saying that the promised sum would likely stimulate private sector investment in construction exceeding US$13.8bn. He added, “Both self-construction and infrastructure activity are to thank for the recovery in the construction industry since June 2020.”

UK: UK Concrete and the Mineral Products Association (MPA) have launched a roadmap for the concrete and cement industry to become net negative by 2050. It plans to do this through decarbonised electricity and transport networks, fuel switching, greater use of low-carbon cements and concretes as well as carbon capture, use or storage (CCUS) technology.

“We have already made significant progress to reduce carbon emissions but are under no illusion about the scale of the net zero challenge,” said Nigel Jackson, chief executive of the MPA. “Achieving this will require the wholesale decarbonisation of all aspects of concrete and cement production, supply and use. The concrete and cement industry as one sector alone cannot deliver net zero and we will only be able to go beyond net zero with concerted support from government, as well as with significant changes across the wider construction, energy and transportation sectors.” He added that the roadmap could be delivered without offsetting emissions, offshoring production facilities or ‘carbon leakage.’

The ‘Roadmap to beyond net zero’ calculates the potential of each technology and the carbon savings which can be achieved. CCUS technology is vital to delivering net zero manufacturing and according to the roadmap will deliver 61% of the required carbon savings. It intends to achieve a net negative industry by 2050 by the ability of concrete to absorb carbon dioxide during use and the thermal properties of concrete in buildings and structures to reduce operational emissions.

The MPA is also lobbying the government for a financial support model including for the capital and operational costs of carbon capture by no later than 2021. This is desired to ensure the technology can be developed, deployed and become an investable proposition in the 2030s.

Pakistan: Provincial Minerals Minister Hafiz Yasir has issued licences for the construction of eight new cement plants. The News International newspaper has reported that the state has already invested US$244m in one of the plants, and a further US$1.83bn-worth of upcoming cement production capacity will be located in the Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.