Displaying items by tag: Jordan
Jordan Cement Company in legal dispute over land
05 November 2018Jordan: Jordan Cement Company is in a legal dispute with local landowners over land ‘illegally’ acquired near its Fuheis plant. The plaintiffs argue that forgery was used by the company in acquiring land, according to Roya TV. The subsidiary of Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim operates two integrated plants, at Fuheis and Rashadiyah.
Al Jouf Cement starts export deal to Jordan
02 March 2018Jordan/Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement Company has activated a contract to export 72,000t/yr of cement to Jordan with effect from late February 2018. The company previously signed the deal with Saudi Industrial Export, according to Mubasher. The financial effect from the agreement is expected to show in the company’s results for the first quarter of 2018.
Sun shines on the cement industry
03 January 2018Just before the Christmas break one of the Global Cement editorial staff noticed how many solar projects have been popping up in the industry news of late. Looking at stories on the Global Cement website tagged with ‘solar’ five occurred in a six month period of 2017 out of a total of 13 since 2014. It’s not a rigorous study by any means but projects in the US, South Korea, India, Namibia and Jordan all suggest a trend.
All these new projects appear to be providing a supplementary energy source from photovoltaic (PV) solar plants that will be used to supply a portion of a cement plant’s electrical power requirements at a subsidised cost. Typically, these initiatives are preparing to supply 20 - 30% of a plant’s electricity over a couple of decades. These schemes are often supported by government subsidies to encourage decarbonised energy sources and a general trend in societies for so-called ‘greener’ energy sources in the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change.
Global Cement is familiar with this model of solar power in the cement industry from its use at the HeidelbergCement Hanson plant at Ketton in the UK. The project was realised by Armstrong Energy through local supplier Lark Energy and it provides around 13% of the cement plant’s electrical energy needs. Originally the array started off by supplying 10MW but this was later increased to 13MW in 2015. A key feature is that as part of the agreement with Armstrong Energy, Hanson receives 35% of the solar power generated for free and buys the remaining 65% at a fixed rate. Even at this rate the plant expects to save around Euro11m in energy costs over the lifetime of the solar array. In addition it will save 3500t/yr of CO2.
Most of the new solar projects announced in 2017 are of a similar scale and ambition to what Hanson Cement has done at Ketton. However, JSW Group’s plans are a magnitude larger. The Indian cement producer wants to build a 200MW solar plant next to its cement grinding plant at Salboni in West Bengal for US$124m. However, it has hedged its bets somewhat by saying that it might build a 36MW thermal power plant instead if its proposal fails.
LafargeHolcim and Italcementi have also experimented with concentrated solar power (CSP) plants for the cement industry. In 2007 LafargeHolcim and the Solar Technology Laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich started researching using high-temperature solar heat to upgrade low-grade carbonaceous feedstock to produce synthetic gas. The intention was to use the synthetic gas as a substitute for coal and petcoke in kilns.
Italcementi’s project at the Aït Baha plant in Morocco uses a CSP process that can be used with the plant’s waste heat recovery unit. Its moveable trough-style solar collectors follow the sun throughout the day to warm up a heat-transfer fluid during the day and store the heat in gravel beds overnight. In this way the CSP process allows for continuous operation over 24 hours. Before Italcementi’s acquisition by HeidelbergCement in 2016 the company had long-term ambitions to roll-out its CSP process across plants in the Middle East and North African region.
New battery technology of the kind backing the growing electric car industry may be further pushing the cement industry’s preference to PV over CSP power. The other renewable energy source slowly being built to support cement plants has been wind. Like PV it too suffers from cyclical disruptions to its power. Technological entrepreneur Elon Musk (of Tesla car fame) notably supplied the world's largest lithium-ion battery to Southern Australia to support one of its wind farms in late 2017. Around the same time local cement producer Adelaide Bighton announced in a separate deal that it had struck a deal to use wind power to part-power some of its facilities in the same region. At present it doesn’t look like solar power will be completely powering cement plants in the near future but perhaps a renewable fuels rate along similar lines to an alternative fuels rate might be a growing trend to watch.
The Global Cement CemPower conference on electrical power, including waste heat recovery, captive power, grinding optimisation and electrical energy efficiency, will return in January 2019.
Jordan: The Labour Ministry has helped to resolve a dispute between workers and management at Lafarge Jordan. Following several days of work stoppages the employees have agreed to sign a collective work contract and resume work as normal, according to the Jordan Times. In return workers at the Rashadia cement plant will receive a bonus payment at Eid Al Fitr and then pay increases based on performance. The parties have also agreed to let the ministry lead future talks on early retirement and workers’ association bans on employees.
Jordan: The General Association for Construction Workers has opposed Lafarge Jordan's decision to give workers at its Fuheis cement plant a three-month paid holiday. The worker’s body has requested that Lafarge provide staff with guarantees that they will receive their full rights after the holiday period ends, according to the Jordan Times. The paid leave started on 2 March 2017 and was implemented to reduce costs at the plant. Clinker production stopped at the plant in 2013 and cement grinding and packaging stopped in July 2016. Around 200 workers are affected by the arrangements.
Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials opens office Jordan
23 January 2017Jordan: The Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials (AUCBM) has opened a regional office in Amman. The office will be managed by Khaled Tarawneh, the General Manager of Arab Company for White Cement Industry and an AUCBM board member. The office is intended to support member companies of the AUCBM towards training workers at cement plants and supporting the AUCBM with its events.
Jordan: LafargeHolcim’s Rashadiya cement plant is set to generate up to a quarter of its power from a solar plant that will start operations in July 2017. Dubai’s Adenium Energy Capital signed a deal for the cement producer to develop the photovoltaic (PV) facility, according to SeeNews. Previously the PV unit was reported to have a capacity of 15MW but this has not been confirmed. In October 2016 Adenium Energy Capital said it had commissioned four PV parks in Jordan with a total capacity of 50MW in total.
Jordan: Lafarge Jordan’s proposal to replace its Fuheis cement plant with a US$2.8bn urban development is waiting for local government approval. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Fuheis Municipality but is still awaiting the municipal council's approval to go ahead with the plan to turn its site into an urban hub, the company's chief executive officer, Amr Reda said in a press conference reported upon by the Jordan Times. He added that, despite the plant not being operational since 2013, it is still facing legal challenges on environmental grounds and that it is paying around US$7m/yr in compensation for environmental issues.
Lafarge Jordan to start building 15MW solar power unit in 2017
31 October 2016Jordan: Lafarge Jordan is set to start building a 15MW solar power unit for its Rashadiya cement plant in early 2017. The power plant, which is being built by Adenium Energy Capital, is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2017, according to the Jordan Times newspaper. The agreement between Adenium and Lafarge was signed in late October 2016.
“This is an important milestone for the domestic industrial sector in general and the cement industry in particular as this agreement emphasises the positive role that industries can play in using alternative and renewable energy resources,” said Lafarge Jordan’s chief executive officer Amr Reda. This project will also follow the national Jordanian strategy for renewable energy launched by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in 2015.
Jordan: Vortex Global, a US solids and bulk handling components company, has appointed Smart Systems for Factories Operation & Maintenance as its agent in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen. Smart is a Middle Eastern supplier of dedusting systems, including industrial ventilations systems, shut off valves, loading spouts and filters.
"Smart has the ability to provide our customers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with any type of equipment for mineral industries including the cement, potash and phosphate industries," said Laurence Millington, Vortex’s Director of International Business. "We are delighted to have Smart represent us now and going into the future.”
Smart Systems was established in 2007 as a specialised technical and turnkey solution provider for the cement and mineral industries. The Smart team consists of project managers, mining experts, operation managers and maintenance managers in mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, control, erection and utilities aspects.