Displaying items by tag: Lafarge France

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France has announced a planned upgrade to its 120,000m³/yr Javel concrete plant involving a capacity reduction to 80,000m3/yr. It says that this corresponds to the significant reduction in the production capacity of the future Mirabeau power station and ’the expectations of residents and public authorities.’ The company has described the project as a ‘modernisation’ and from 2023 it will see at least 50% of its production become low or very-low carbon concrete products.

The producer said, “LafargeHolcim's approach by requesting the withdrawal of the existing authorisation thus consolidates its commitments vis-à-vis the stakeholders in the consultation process. The enforcement of the environmental controls announced by Paris Seine Normandy Ports (HAROPA) will of course be maintained and LafargeHolcim is fully in favour of maintaining the strictest controls on the part of the state services.”

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France has installed a new rotary kiln at its Martres-Tolosane cement plant. The installation is part of a Euro120m project to build a new production line at the site. The work will also increase the plant’s alternative fuels (AF) substitution rate to 80% from 30%.

The company said, “Once completed the work will increase the productivity of the cement plant, while reducing its environmental impact. The plant will be equipped with the latest environmental technologies, thus increasing the share of energy recovery from waste and its use in the production of clinker. The work will reduce energy consumption, reduce the carbon dioxide (CO₂) footprint by 25% - 30% per tonne of cement and create local circular economy loops with partners in the greater South-West.” The on-going upgrade to the plant is on schedule for completion in November 2021.

There were mixed feelings evoked by HeidelbergCement’s good news last week that its French subsidiary Ciments Calcia is to set to spend Euro400m on a modernisation project. Sadly, this came with the bad news that the integrated plants at Gargenville and Cruas will be downgraded into a grinding plant and a terminal respectively, and there will be a review of the company’s headquarters in Guerville. All of this will cut 160 jobs but create 20 new ones.

Make no mistake, this is serious money to invest. Euro300m alone will go towards an upgrade of the integrated Airvault cement plant in the former Poitou-Charentes administrative region. HeidelbergCement didn’t say it in its press release but French press reported that the pyroprocessing line at Airvault will be rebuilt starting in 2022 with commissioning scheduled for 2025. If correct then this certainly suits an investment on this scale for a single plant. Smaller investments in the region of Euro25 – 50m were also said be earmarked for the integrated plants at Bussac-Forêt, Beaucaire and Couvrot. These are serious commitments to HeidelbergCement’s production base in France.

Generally speaking, the French cement and construction market has done as well as expected for a country forced to implement two coronavirus lockdowns so far in 2020. Half-way through the year the major cement producers were reporting sales declines of around 10% year-on-year with business picking up again over the summer. Vicat, for example, reported a 9% fall in sales volumes in the first half followed by ‘solid business growth’ in June 2020. LafargeHolcim, CRH and HeidelbergCement all reported a similar situation for their local subsidiaries.

Looking at the wider construction industry, in October 2020 analyst company GlobalData stuck by its forecast of a contraction of construction output by 11.6% in France in 2020. It noted a 35.5% quarter-on-quarter rebound in the third quarter, although it reckoned output was still down by around 5% in the quarter year-on-year, using French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) data. With a second national lockdown initiated in late October 2020, it said that INSEE expected a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2020 even with construction sites being allowed to stay open. This follows a peak of cement production above 20Mt in the late 2000s before hitting a low of around 15.5Mt in 2015 and a gradual recovery since then, according to data from the French cement industry union (SFIC).

Ciments Calcia’s upgrade at Airvault is noteworthy for the whole of Europe because it is one of only a few new pyroprocessing line projects in the last decade. The last major one was the new 4000t/day line at HeidelbergCement’s Burglengenfeld plant in Germany that was commissioned in 2018. The trend since then has generally been one of integrated plants slowly closing as markets shrank following the 2008 financial crisis, international clinker levels boomed and environmental measures tightened. Dominik von Achten, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement, addressed this last point directly with the announcement of the Airvault project when he said, “This is why we focus our initiatives on the main CO₂-emitting plants in France.” The competitors to the larger established cement producers in France are certainly thinking about CO₂. Alongside the general European trend of fewer new clinker production lines has been rise in France of the smaller cement producers with grinding and/or reduced-clinker factor models like Cem’In’Eu, Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies and Ecocem. Anyone spending Euro300m on a clinker kiln spewing out CO₂ would do well to consider how much the CO₂ price might be in fifty years time.

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France says that it will continue to provide its regular service to customers as operations continue into a second national coronavirus lockdown in 2020. This was made possible by the government’s decision to permit the continuation of construction and industrial activities, according to the company.

It said, “The company has learned a lot since the containment last spring and is prepared to guarantee the best possible service for all of its markets, even under the specific conditions linked to the acceleration of the Covid-19 epidemic. All activities - cements, concretes and aggregates - will therefore operate normally throughout the country.” It added, “All our sites are now showing sufficient stock levels to deal calmly with the coming months.”

France: The council of Paris has voted to withdraw permissions for a planned expansion to LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France’s Bercy concrete plant after protesters captured footage of a slurry spill that the company called ‘exceptional.’

Finanznachrichten News has reported that the council also voted to launch a “mission to reassess cement and building materials production by 2040” to preserve the local environment, as a result of which it expects the city to shift its reliance to imports of cement and concrete from surrounding areas.

France: LafargeHolcim has said that Lafarge Béton is not responsible for the discharge of ‘particles of cement, treatment liquids and plastic microfibers’ from its Bercy concrete plant in Paris Department. The La Télégramme newspaper has reported that the plant has been under environmental inspection since late August 2020. The company says that the pollution resulted from a single incident ‘caused by malicious parties’ who knew of the on-going investigation.

The mayor of Paris has contacted the public prosecutor to request a criminal action against LafargeHolcim.

Belgium: Holcim Belgium has finished loading around 1250t of cement from its 1.7Mt/yr integrated Obourg cement plant onto a train in Obourg in Belgium’s Hainaut province. It leaves on 24 September 2019 for Lafarge France’s Bonneuile-Sur-Marne, Île-de-France depot. La Province has reported that LafargeHolcim began the process on 20 September 2019 with the conveyance of cement by three shuttle trucks to the train’s 12 carriages. LafargeHolcim spokesperson Séverine Baudoin has explained that the undertaking, LafargeHolcim’s first of its kind in the region, is a part of its sustainable development plan applied to distribution to new clients in the Paris area.

France: The Ministry of Culture has refused a sponsorship of Euro0.2m from Lafarge intended for the Musée de Cluny in Paris. The ministry said that the sponsorship was paid in 2015 and then returned in 2018, according to the Agence France Presse. However, the ministry did not say why the money has been rejected. In 2017 the Paris City Council ended a partnership with Lafarge for the supply of sand for an urban beach project due to allegations of the building material manufacturer’s conduct in Syria during the civil war. A legal case examining Lafarge’s conduct in Syria between 2011 and 2014 is on-going.

France: Lafarge France plans to launch a reusable cement pallet scheme in October 2019. The new single-size wooden pallets for bagged cement will be reinforced for use at least six times. They will be used at all of the company’s sites across its range of bagged cement products. The pallets will also include Lafarge branding. A saving of 7500t/yr of wood is anticipated. The scheme is part of the Lafarge 360 initiative.

France: Lafarge France has launched its Lafarge 360 initiative. The scheme aims to aid specifiers, contractors and builders make low-carbon structures through reducing CO₂ emissions, preserving natural resources and responsible innovation. It will start the initiative by proving a Lafarge 360 score on its associated digital platform to allow customers to assess the environmental impact of Lafarge’s products. By providing a rating of A to D the tool will offer information on the concrete types.