Displaying items by tag: Grinding mill

Philippines: Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer says a ready2grind system it supplied to Petra Cement started in early December 2019. The clinker grinding mill is operational at a grinding plant on the Zamboanga Peninsula in Mindanao. No value for the order has been disclosed. Petra Cement’s sister company , Big Boss Cement, has also ordered a modular mill system from Gebr. Pfeiffer.

Philippines: Gebr. Pfeiffer has received an order for a modular four-roller ready2grind 2500 vertical grinding unit to Big Boss Cement’s Porac, Pampanga plant. It says that the mill will have a production capacity of 70t/hr of cement, ground to a fineness of 4000cm2/g. The company will additionally supply a packing plant module for bag and bulk loading.

Gebr. Pfeiffer said that in spite of delays to the unit’s commissioning due to coronavirus lockdown, it “has experienced specialists on site and is therefore able to support the customer in this phase.”

Thailand: Germany-based KHD Humboldt Wedag has reported the successful commissioning of a new Comflex grinding line at Siam City Cement’s Plant 1 in Saraburi. The line replaces two ball mill circuits, maintaining a production capacity of 350t/hr with a 40% lower energy consumption. The Comflex comprises a roller press, RPM18–200/180 static coarse material separator, VS620 static fine material separator, LS8600 system fan, HKSK 236/346 and four product separation cyclones. KHD says that Siam City Cement awarded it the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract because of the system’s low specific power consumption of 13.36kWh/t, compared to over 21kWh/t in the previous system.

Germany: Gebr. Pfeiffer has launched a range of webinars and individual analysis and advice sessions in order to support cement producers preparing for start-up after the global coronavirus crisis. The services include webinars about vertical roller mill grinding and the Gebr. Pfeiffer MVR roller mill range and ready2grind modular system, as well as individual remote inspections. Gebr. Pfeiffer is also offering individual start-up support sessions.

Uzbekistan: Eurocement subsidiary Akhangarantsement has reported the successful installation of rotary kiln housing at its upcoming 3.0Mt/yr integrated Akhangarantsement plant. The Uzbekistan Daily newspaper has reported that workers completed internal and external welding on the kiln body, while work on jaw and hammer crushers for the raw materials and clinker grinding plants is ongoing. The project is on schedule for completion in mid-2020.

Togo: Cim Metal Group subsidiary Cimco has received a Gebr. Pfeiffer 6400kW, CEM I - CEM IV MVR 6000 C-6 grinding mill. Germany-based Intercem Engineering will install the mill, which grinds CEM-I to a fineness of 3800cm2 at a rate of 370t/hr, at Cimco’s Lomé grinding plant.

Gebr. Pfeiffer has said that this is its 12th MVR mill installed on the African continent.

India: JK Cement has announced a rise in total comprehensive profit (net of tax) over the nine months ended 31 December 2019 of 130% to US$56.2m from US$24.5m in the corresponding period of 2018. Revenues rose by 14% year-on-year to US$567m in the period from US$495m over the nine months to 31 December 2018.

On 3 February 2020 JK Cement commissioned a 1.5Mt/yr and a 1.0Mt/yr grinding unit at its Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Mangrol, Rajasthan, plants.

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.