Displaying items by tag: Grinding mill

Interesting news from Holcim Mexico this week with the announcement that it is planning to invest US$40m towards building a 0.7Mt/yr grinding plant in the state of Yucátan. The unit will be supplied with clinker from Holcim Mexico’s Macuspana and Orizaba integrated cement plants. This follows the news in August 2018 that Elementia’s cement company, Cementos Fortaleza, had started to build a new 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant at Merida in Yucatan. That project has a budget of US$30m.

These two projects offer a contrast to comments made by the head of Cemex Mexico, Ricardo Naya Barba, who was lamenting the state of the market to local press at the start of the month. He said that sales volumes of cement, concrete and aggregates had fallen by 12 – 15% in the first seven months of 2019. He blamed the decline partly on falling national infrastructure investment. This marked a slight improvement on Cemex’s Mexican results for the first of 2019 where sales, sales volumes and earnings were all down. At this time as well as slowing infrastructure projects the situation was also attributed to a residential sector hit by the slower-than anticipated start of the new programs.

Elementia’s Mexican cement business, Cementos Fortaleza, reported a similar picture in the second quarter of 2019. Its net sales fell by 6% year-on-year to US65.4m from US$69.7m. This was attributed to a market contraction affecting all of Elementia’s businesses in the country, as well as the redefinition of its core products for the Building Systems business unit. Earnings fell also and this was further attributed to mounting energy and freight costs. Cementos Moctezuma faced many of the same issues. Its cement sales fell by 13% to US$147m in the second quarter of 2019. It is expecting a similar picture for the remainder of the year.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) shows that the value of cement sales in Mexico fell by 7% year-on-year to US$1.21bn in the first quarter of 2019 from US$1.30bn in the same period in 2018. Cement sales volumes fell by 8.2% to 10.9Mt from 11.9Mt. This was the lowest figure since 2014.

The one larger Mexican cement producer that doesn’t seem to have been overly troubled so far in 2019 is Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Earlier in the year the company was considered to be the Mexican cement producer most at risk from potential US tariffs due to higher reliance on exports than its competitors. Yet Mexico’s National Chamber of Cement (CANACEM) publicly said that that it didn’t consider US tariffs a significant barrier to the local industry. GCC reported growing net sales and cement sales volumes in the second quarter of 2019 due to industrial warehouse construction, mining projects and middle-income housing at the northern cities.

Two new grinding plants in a particular region of Mexico don’t necessarily reflect the state of the country’s industry as a whole. Yucatan may suit the grinding model due to a lack of raw materials or strong shipping links. The region may also be defying the gloomy national state of affairs in the construction sector. Alternatively, producers may be chasing low-cost and low-risk expansion plans in a tough market. The grinding model wins out over the clinker producing one in this scenario. In the wider picture in August 2019 Cemento Cruz Azul ordered two petcoke grinding mills from Germany’s Loesche and Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon said it had been awarded the supply of an MAS DT burner to an unnamed cement plant. These suggest that, although the sector may be having a bad year so far, things are expected to get better.

Philippines: Republic Cement Services plans to commission two cement grinding mills in 2019 at a cost of US$20m each. Once completed the company will have a cement production capacity of around 9Mt/yr, according to GMA News. President Nabil Francis also said that the company would need more clinker for the mills. This could either be sourced locally or from imports.

Sweden: Cementa’s Skövde plant working on project to optimise its grinding process and reduce the clinker factor of the cement it produces. The project is looked at grinding limestone separately as opposed to grinding it with clinker and gypsum, which it currently does. The plant is using a mill it only uses occasionally to grind the limestone to the desired size. A full-scale trial was run in the autumn of 2018. Products from the trial are now being tested at a laboratory.

Paraguay: Industria Nacional del Cemento (INC) expects to begin March 2018 with a 30% production rise, following the opening of a new mill, according to its president Jorge Mendez. Production will increase to 1.4 million bags per month, from 1.1 million bags per month at present. Its market share will increase to 70%-75%, from 51% at present. This is anticipated to add an extra US$50m to the company’s turnover. The new mill is currently 90% complete and has cost the company US$11.5m.

Uzbekistan: Turkey’s DAL Teknik Makina has ordered a MVR 5000 R-4 cement grinding mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for a project in the Surxondaryo region. The mill will have a 3700kW drive and it will be able to grind 400t/hr of cement. Feed material with a moisture level of up to 7% will be ground to a fineness of 12% R 0.090mm. The mill will be ready for shipping later in 2017. The project is the second mill that DAL Teknik Makina has ordered from Gebr. Pfeiffer.

Algeria: Fives installed the first FCB B cement grinding mill in early April 2017 at Entreprise des Ciments et Dérivés d’El Chellif’s (ECDE) 6000t/day clinker production line at Chlef. Installation of the mill followed the erection of the FCB kiln (Ø 5.1 x L 82m) in February 2017. A heavy lifting jack crane system sliding on rails was required to install the 4.8 x 17.8m shell and 98.5t gearbox inside its specific finished building. Grinding mills no. 2 and no. 3 will be installed next to complete the cement grinding mills at the unit. Once complete it will include three 160t/hr FCB B-mills with 5320kW drives and associated FCB TSV4500 HF classifiers. ECDE is a member of the industrial group Ciments d’Algérie (GICA).

Philippines: Republic Cement is expanding its grinding capacity by over 10% in anticipation of a rise in demand prompted by increased government infrastructure spending. Other planned upgrades include an improved dust collection system at the cement producer’s plant in Bulacan. The company is also considering building new cement plants. Company president Renato C Sunico made the comments to local press at a forum on social housing.

The government of the Philippines has cited public infrastructure as one of its general spending priorities, setting aside US$18.5bn, which is equivalent to 5.4% of gross domestic product, in 2017.

India: Sagar Cements has received approval to buy a cement grinding plant in Bayyavaram, Andhra Pradesh owned by Toshali Cements for US$8.9m. The sale is expected to be completed by 30 September 2016 subject to obtaining due diligence and other approvals.

Following the acquisition, Sagar Cements intends to increase the grinding plant’s production capacity to 3Mt/yr with an investment of up to US$0.89m. The new unit will enable Sagar Cements to reduce its logistical costs and introduce slag cement to markets in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and parts of Orissa.

India: Malabar Cements will restart operations at its Cherthala cement grinding plant following approval from the Kerala High Court. The cement producer says its has been granted permission to produce Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) using clinker, gypsum and fly ash at the plant. Previously the Bureau of Indian Standards objected to the cement producer manufacturing PPC.

Sri Lanka: The Industry and Commerce Ministry has expressed its interest in buying the local operations of LafargeHolcim. Government sources have said that discussions are now on-going within the administration. The multinational cement producer announced in early June 2016 that it was selling its subsidiary Holcim Lanka. The company was originally state-owned before it was privatised.

"The government is willing to negotiate to buy it at a reasonable price. This is the only integrated cement plant in Sri Lanka. The limestone quarry in Puttalam belongs to the Cement Corporation and it had been leased out to Holcim," said a spokesman of the ministry quoted by the Daily News newspaper. He added that no final decision on the matter has been taken yet. The government also hopes that, if it successfully purchased the company, it could reduce the price of cement in the country.

Local press reports that seven bidders have made offers for Holcim Lanka. These include companies from UAE, Indonesia, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka. Holcim Lanka’s assets include two packing plants in Galle and Trincomalee, a cement plant in Puttalam and a cement grinding plant in Galle.