Displaying items by tag: Holcim

Russia: Holcim’s divested Russian business has rebranded as Cementum. Local management concluded a deal to buy the company from Switzerland-based Holcim in December 2022. The new ownership agreed to change the name upon completion of the transaction. Holcim Russia had been operating as a deconsolidated subsidiary of Holcim since March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Cemex launched a new waste management division called Regenera this week. Cemex describes Regenera as a “business that provides circularity solutions, including reception, management, recycling, and coprocessing of waste.” The Mexico-based company has a long and leading history with sourcing and using alternative fuels in the cement sector and the new organisation looks set to utilise this experience. What is notable though is how the business is targeting three waste streams: municipal and industrial; industrial by-products; and construction, demolition and excavation waste (CDEW). Bringing the three waste streams together in this way appears to be novel for the heavy building materials sector, particularly the inclusion of CDEW, which we will explore further here.

CDEW is split into fractions, just like the municipal and solid waste streams that end up as alternative fuels at cement plants, but the biggest fractions are generally concrete, followed by bricks. The recycled concrete is then typically used as an aggregate, either in new concrete production or in areas like road construction and earthworks. The use of recycled aggregates (RA) made from CDEW goes back to at least the 1930s in its current form although ‘reusing’ materials from structures such as castles and churches goes back far further. Recycling and reusing CDEW gained a boost in 2020 when the European Union (EU) set a 70% recovery target. However, within the EU the CDEW recycling rates vary considerably and that 2020 target includes the use of CDEW in backfill applications.

In its launch statement for Regenera, Cemex noted that it operates a dock in Paris, where it receives a variety of materials, including construction debris, excavated material and inert soil. These materials are sorted, processed and then transformed into recycled aggregates or organic material used to restore quarries. Cemex then promptly followed up the official launch of Regenera on 30 January 2023 with the acquisition of a majority stake in Shtang Recycle, an Israel-based CDEW recycling company. It added that Shtang Recycle is preparing to build a recycling plant with a production capacity of 0.6Mt/yr of CDEW waste materials. The output from the plant will be used as raw materials for aggregate production.

The focus on CDEW recycling was flagged up at Cemex’s investor event in November 2022. It said that it was targeting a recycling rate of 14Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste by 2030. Other managed waste stream goals included doubling the amount of municipal and industrial waste it manages, to achieve a 50% to fossil fuel substitution rate, and increasing its usage of alternative raw materials and by-products by 30%, thereby eliminating 13Mt/yr of extracted materials.

Cemex is not alone in targeting the CDEW waste sector. Holcim’s recent work in the area goes back to at least 2016 when a recycling unit near its Retznei cement plant in Austria started processing 130,000t/yr of CDEW. It announced in December 2022 that it was setting up a similar recycling centre, also in Austria, at its Mannersdorf cement plant. In October 2022 Holcim acquired Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials in the UK. This company recycles 150,000t/yr of construction and demolition waste into aggregates and concrete. Holcim linked the acquisition to its Strategy 25 target of recycling 10Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste by 2025.

Activity by other cement companies includes the commissioning of a construction waste recycling plant at Gennevilliers in France by CRH-subsidiary Eqiom in April 2022. It was aiming for a target of 50,000t in 2022. In November 2022 Heidelberg Materials agreed to acquire RWG Holding based in Berlin, Germany. Then, in December 2022, it announced a deal to buy Mick George Group in the UK. Both proposed acquisitions are subject to competition authority approval. Heidelberg Materials’ current target is to offer circular alternatives for half of its concrete products by 2030.

The moves by the bigger cement companies into the CDEW sector follow sustainable thinking and the waste hierarchy. Yet the big prize here is to gain a route to dispose of some of their CO₂ emissions through recarbonation and this has been flagged up in several net-zero roadmaps for the cement sector such as those by Cembureau and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA). Holcim has been involved in the FastCarb project in France, running a pilot at its Val d’Azergues cement plant in 2021. Heidelberg Materials has been testing its own process with so-called recycled concrete paste. The development now appears to be that utilising CDEW has entered the sustainability strategies for some of the big cement-concrete-aggregate producers, targets have been set and acquisitions are happening.

For more information on Heidelberg Materials research into concrete recycling read the January 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Switzerland: A civil legal case against Holcim made by four residents of the Indonesian island of Pari has filed a formal complaint against the cement producer on behalf of the entire island at the Cantonal Court of Zug. The civil case was started in July 2022 in response to climate change-induced flooding of the island, according to Reuters. Informal negotiations followed in October 2022 but this failed, according to a representative of Swiss Church Aid. Environmental organisation Walhi claims that this latest action is first formal civil proceeding in Switzerland against a company for its contribution to climate change

Walhi says that the plantiffs are demanding ‘proportional compensation.’ The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is also supporting the islanders. A spokesperson for Holcim said that climate change was a "top priority for Holcim at the heart of our strategy".

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) has appointed Jaime Rocha Font as its chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds Pedro Carranza Andressen in the post, according to Alimarket-Construcción. Rocha Font is currently the CEO of Mexico-based Elementia and he will continue to hold this position. Elementia owns a controlling share of Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), the parent company of CPV.

Rocha Font has been the head of Elementia since 2020. Prior to this he was the head of Elementia’s cement division, including subsidiaries Cementos Fortaleza and Giant Cement in the US, from 2015. He also held the position of president of the National Cement Chamber of Mexico between 2019 and 2022. Earlier in his career he spent over 20 years working for Holcim from 1992. He holds a degree in civil engineering from the Universidad Pontificia Católica de Chile and a master's degree in international economics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles amongst other qualifications.

Poland: The European Union (EU) Innovation Fund has awarded Euro228m towards the Go4ECOPlanet carbon capture and storage project at Lafarge Poland’s Kujawy cement plant. The project has a total cost of Euro380m.

It will use Air Liquide's Cryocap FG technology to capture the CO₂ at the plant. The CO₂ will be liquefied and transported by rail to a port and then injected into a depleted oil field for permanent storage. The transport and storage of CO₂ once it has left the cement plant will be accomplished by cooperation with other partners with knowledge and experience in the liquefaction, transport and storage of gases. The goal is to create a complete carbon capture and storage industrial and logistics chain. Commissioning of the cement plant upgrade is planned for 2027.

Germany: The Carbon2Business carbon capture project at Holcim Deutschland's Lägerdorf cement plant has received Euro110m in funding from the EU. Holcim Deutschland plans to use the funds to install a new oxyfuel kiln with downstream compression and a CO₂ cleaning unit at the plant in Schleswig-Holstein. The producer expects to commission the upgraded carbon neutral cement plant in 2029.

Austria: Lafarge Austria and Perlmooser Beton will operate under the new name Holcim Austria from May 2023. Both companies have been part of Holcim Group since 2015. The rebranding exercise follows the renaming of LafargeHolcim as Holcim that took place in mid-2021.

Lafarge Austria operates two cement plants, at Mannersdorf and Retznei respectively, with a total production capacity of 1.6Mt/yr. Its headquarters is in Vienna. The company employs around 250 people.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe has rebranded to Khayah Cement amidst its on-going corporate restructuring. The Sunday News has reported that Khayah Cement is in the process of reconstituting its board of directors and board committees.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe has secured a suspension on trading in its shares on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange until April 2023. Chronicle News has reported that the Holcim subsidiary requested the suspension, in which to 'address in-house challenges.'

The producer assured the market that this latest development 'will not in any way affect business, amid consideration of various courses of action, with a view to protecting the business and the interests of all stakeholders.'

Sri Lanka: INSEE Cement has appointed Jan Kunigk as its chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds Nandana Ekanayake, who will continue as chair.

Kunigk became the cement producer’s Executive Vice President in 2017, and also worked as its Commercial Director. He previously worked as the Senior Vice President at Holcim Indonesia and has held project and strategy and roles for Holcim in Switzerland. Prior to this, he worked in management consulting. Kunigk holds a master's degree in business administration (MBA) from Western Illinois University in the USA and a diploma in European Business Studies from Bamberg University in Germany.