Displaying items by tag: Government

Libya: The Libyan Fund for Internal Investment and Development and the National Company for Building Material Industry have signed a partnership deal to build a 1.6Mt/yr cement plant at Nalut. The agreement follows collaboration between the Presidential Council and the Central Bank of Libya in order to build the economy, according to the Libya Observer.

India: Government data places the country’s cement production capacity utilisation rate at 59%. The local cement sector had a production capacity of 509Mt/yr and it produced 298Mt in 2018 from 143 integrated plants, 102 grinding plants, five standalone clinker plants and 62 mini plants. India has a cement consumption of 235kg/capita compared to the global average of 520kg/capita. The National Council for Cement and Building Materials with the cement section of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade released the information as part of the publication of ‘The Cement Industry – India 2018.’

India: State-owned producer Malabar Cements will increase production following reduced production over the last three months. The state government of Kerala has intervened following price rises, according to the Hindu newspaper. Malabar Cement sells around 6 - 8% of the cement sold in the state. The state government is also considering regulating the price of cement.

Algeria: Youcef Yousfi, the Minister of Industry and Mines, says that the government is aiming for cement exports worth US$500m by 2023. This is based on a surplus of 10 – 15Mt of cement by this time, according to Télévision Algérienne. Cement exports reached 1Mt in 2018. This is expected to grow to 2Mt soon with 1.2Mt supplied by GICA Group.

Belarus: The government is considering offering subsidies to local cement producers. The matter was discussed at a meeting examining the performance of various companies chaired by the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency. First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Turchin said that cement companies had invested in projects only for the price of cement to fall ‘dramatically’ leading to financial losses. If any aid is provided it will come with government-enforced targets.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has praised President Donald Trump’s call to rebuild the country’s infrastructure in his State of the Union address. Trump said that he wanted both political parties to work together to pass an infrastructure bill.

“The Portland Cement Association applauds President Trump for emphasising the political imperative of addressing America’s long-neglected infrastructure needs in his State of the Union address. America’s cement manufacturers are ready and willing to work with Congress and the Trump Administration to find a legislative solution that shores up our transportation and waterways in a fiscally responsible manner,” said PCA president and chief executive officer (CEO) Michael Ireland.

The Gambia: Cement importers have asked the government to treat all importers equally. Alhajie Cessay, a local importer, said that some government-preferred companies that import cement from Senegal are exempt from the tax, according to the Point newspaper. However, other importers have been subject to tariffs since the start of 2019.

UK: A consortium comprising Aggregate Industries, Innovatium and the University of Birmingham has gained funding from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to test a liquid air energy storage (LAES) energy efficiency technology under the government’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme. The IEEA programme, administered by the Carbon Trust on behalf of BEIS, will provide nearly Euro0.4m towards delivering a new compressed air system utilising LAES technology from initial laboratory testing to full operation at Aggregate Industries’ Bardon Hill quarry in Leicestershire.

PRISMA (Peak Reduction by Integrated Storage and Management of Air) by Innovatium is a LAES technology that stores energy in liquid air form to provide compressed air, allowing inefficient partially loaded, variable-demand compressors to be turned off, thus improving the total system efficiency by up to 57%. The PRISMA system will bring together a latent energy cold storage tank, filled with a phase change material (PCM) to store thermal energy, and a number of other off-the-shelf components to form a system that will work with Aggregate Industries’ existing compressed air network. The research group says that the integration of the equipment and components in an industrial setting, for the provision of compressed air, has never been attempted before.

“The project will help to address the ‘energy trilemma’ of managing energy efficiency, energy cost and energy security by: significantly improving the energy efficiency of our compressed air system; managing electricity costs by running the compressors out-of-hours, when electricity is cheaper; and helping to smooth and reduce the peak electrical demand on site. We are therefore very excited to be the first industrial partner to install the PRISMA system at our Bardon Hill quarry in Leicestershire,” said Richard Eaton, Energy Manager at Aggregate Industries.

The 24-month project will involve the development of the PCM at the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering as well as the design, manufacture and assembly of multiple system components by Innovatium before installation of the system at Bardon Hill. The PRISMA Project has currently only been deployed in a simulated environment. Following successful delivery of the project, this scalable technology has multi-sectoral applications for compressed air systems both in the UK and globally. In the UK, the compressed air market is estimated at 1.3GW of installed electrical capacity across around 4500 sites and over 55,000 individual compressor units.

Sri Lanka: Insee Cement is working with the local government to supported rebuilding and renovation efforts in flooded parts of Northern Province. The cement producer has distributed 10 bags of its Insee Sanstha product to over 250 displaced families, according to the Daily News newspaper. It said it would continue to monitor the situation and offer more support.

Cyprus: Vassiliko Cement has won the Gold Environmental Protection Award in 2018 at the Pancyprian Environmental Awards for Organisations and Businesses. The prize was given for the cement producer’s implementation of its Corporate Social Responsibility Policy. Company staff worked with local communities, non-government organisations (NGO) and others. The competition was organised by the Cyprus Center for Environmental Research and Education, in cooperation with the government and other groups.