Displaying items by tag: Government
Cuban government publishes price lists of products including cement to counter inflation
18 July 2019Cuba: The Ministry of Finance and Prices has published a list of prices for a range of products, including cement, that are sold in state-run stores and agricultural markets. The ministry says that the initiative is intended to evaluate the local market at the municipal level in response to concerns about inflation following a government-mandated salary increases, according to 14ymedio. Shops that violate the regulated price lists may face sanctions.
Rwanda: The Rwandan government has extended the sale of its stake in Cimerwa to 19 July 2019 to give potential investors more time. The initial deadline was 5 July 2019, according to the New Times newspaper. The government and its related shareholders own a 49% stake in the cement producer. The controlling share in the company is owned by South Africa’s PPC.
Asia Cement union joins quarry row
18 July 2019Taiwan: Asia Cement’s union has taken out advertisements in major local newspapers protesting against a ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court blocking its right to operate a cement quarry located in the Taroko National Park. It says that the cement producer applied for the permit extension in line with the Mining Act in 2016, according to the Taipei Times newspaper. It added that the court’s decision could negatively affect industrial operations, labour rights as well as the government’s credibility for boosting the economy. Environmental groups have called on the company to negotiate with local people living near the quarry.
France: The Ministry of Culture has refused a sponsorship of Euro0.2m from Lafarge intended for the Musée de Cluny in Paris. The ministry said that the sponsorship was paid in 2015 and then returned in 2018, according to the Agence France Presse. However, the ministry did not say why the money has been rejected. In 2017 the Paris City Council ended a partnership with Lafarge for the supply of sand for an urban beach project due to allegations of the building material manufacturer’s conduct in Syria during the civil war. A legal case examining Lafarge’s conduct in Syria between 2011 and 2014 is on-going.
Refuse-derived legislation in the Netherlands?
17 July 2019The UK waste fuels industry is facing potential challenge from changing Dutch environmental legislation. As part of its new National Climate Agreement the government in the Netherlands is considering imposing a tariff of Euro32/t on imported refuse-derived fuel (RDF) from the start of January 2020. It also wants to add a CO2 tax of Euro30/t on industrial emitters from the start of 2021.
This is bad news for the UK’s waste export market because 1.28Mt or 44% of exported waste fuels from the UK in 2018 went to the Netherlands. The majority of this was RDF. That was more than the next two biggest destinations, Sweden and Germany, combined. Andy Hill of Cynosure Partners summed up the UK situation in the June 2019 issue of Global Cement Magazine when he said, “The UK generates more far more waste than it has landfill, recycling and alternative fuel capacity combined. Quite simply, that’s why the UK exports and has become a leading force in Europe in terms of RDF and solid recovered fuel (SRF) exports.”
Graph 1: International Waste Shipments exported from England, 2011 – 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.
Graph 2: Destinations of English waste fuels exports in 2018. Source: UK Environment Agency.
Waste management companies and their representative associations on both sides of the North Sea are not taking this terribly well. Robert Corijn, chair of the RDF Industry Group, a European waste organisation, summed up his members response by pointing out both the environmental cost of the new legislation and the risk to jobs in the UK. “RDF export forms a vital and flexible part of the UK’s waste management system, supporting over 6800 additional jobs in the UK, and saving over 0.7Mt/yr CO2e emissions.” Robert Loos of the Dutch Waste Management Association made a similar response questioning what exactly the Dutch government was attempting to achieve.
Steve Burton, one of the directors of UK-fuels producer Andusia, went further by saying that the Dutch had proposed the move on environmental grounds because it has an incineration capacity of 8Mt/yr but produces only 6Mt/yr of waste. “So they think that by setting a tax it will significantly curtail how much gets incinerated in the Netherlands and thus produce less CO2. All very sensible if you consider CO2 in isolation in your own country. However, the Dutch Government aren’t looking at the bigger picture…” He then went on to point out that the RDF would then either get burnt elsewhere or landfilled resulting in no overall CO2 emissions reduction. His further assessment, which you can read here, goes on to speculate amongst other things that Dutch Energy for Waste (EFW) plants could end up having to cut their gate fees by more than the import tariff in order to keep running. The state-owned EFW plants would then made a loss for the tax payers until the market stabilised. It should be noted that the data from the Environment Agency indicates that Andusia exported just under 38,000t of RDF to the Netherlands in 2018.
The more prickly issues of using waste fuels may prove tricky for Dutch legislators. Corijn’s distinction above of using CO2e for the savings from RDF usage is important in this argument since burning RDF and alternative fuels, either for generating energy or making cement, still releases CO2. In the European Union (EU) it’s the biomass fraction of RDF that’s important for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the like because biomass emissions are counted as carbon-neutral. Remove this effect and the benefit of waste fuels are more to do with the waste hierarchy and reusing materials rather than leaving them to rot and release methane, a gas with a more potent global warming effect than CO2. Despite this, at face value, importing rubbish and then burning it to release yet more unwanted CO2 may seem nonsensical to the parliamentarians. Perhaps the other thing they should consider is that waste-derived fuels are manufactured products to set specifications. On-going arguments around the world about the developed world ‘exporting its rubbish’ frequently ignore this point.
Since the new Dutch National Climate Agreement is currently at the proposal stage it has a long way to go before it becomes law. First it has to be turned into legislation and then this has to be approved by the Dutch Parliament. As indicated so far the waste management industry will continue to fight its corner with vigour.
India: The Jharkhand Industrial Area Development Authority (JIADA) has cancelled an allotment of land to UltraTech Cement for a project to build a 1.5Mt/yr plant. The cement producer was allotted 48 acres of land by JIADA in 2016, according to the Times of India. The industrial development body for the state government also sent notices to 20 other companies warning them that their allocations would be nullified. The action is being taken to free up land for development.
Taiwan: The Taipei High Administrative Court has repealed Asia Cement’s right to operate a cement quarry located in the Taroko National Park. This decision upheld an appeal from Taroko residents and overrules a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) decision to grant a 20-year extension of mining rights, according to the Taiwan News newspaper. Asia Cement’s previous mining concession expired in late 2017 and the Bureau of Mines, MOEA originally extended it until 2037.
Nigeria: Oyebamiji Dauda, the chairman of the Lagos State Bricklayers’ Association, has urged the government to cut the price of cement. He wants it to make cement manufacturing more competitive by allowing more producers to operate in the market, according to the News Agency of Nigeria. He added that the ‘high’ cost of cement was negatively affecting building construction. Dauda’s ideas to ease the price of cement include government subsidy, tax breaks for local producers of building materials and further penalties for imported products.
Belarus: The Council of Ministers has required companies to obtain a special license for importing Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from outside the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The requirement will take effect later this month and will be in effect for six months, according to the Belapan news agency. The new regulations have been introduced to support the local sector.
In January to April 2019, Belarus imported 0.13Mt of cement including 65,000t from other EEU countries, according to the National Statistical Committee. In the same period, Belarus’ companies made 1.25Mt of cement, an increase of nearly 12% year-on-year, and exported 0.44Mt.
Nepal to label cement under 33, 43 and 53 grades
11 July 2019Nepal: The government has approved changes to allow domestic cement to be labelled under 33, 43 and 53 grades. Previously cement could not be certified higher than 33 grade due to a lack of legal provision, according to the Himalayan Times newspaper. The extended quality certification process will be managed by the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology.
Before this latest change some local manufacturers were selling 43 and 53-grade products despite lacking certification. Importers have also benefited from the lack of legal clarity over higher strength grades of cement. It is hoped that the new regulations will reduce imports.