Displaying items by tag: Lafarge
Controversial Canadian plant gets government cash
31 January 2014Canada: It has been announced that a controversial new US$1bn cement plant and marine terminal, to be constructed by McInnis Cement, will be part financed by the Quebec government and two provincial agencies. The authorities will inject US$350m into the Port-Daniel facility. The other US$650m will be provided by McInnis Cement, which is owned by the Beaudoin/Bombardier family that also controls Bombardier Inc, and aircraft and rolling stock manufacturer.
The McInnis project is scheduled to produce 2Mt/yr and will employ about 2400 workers during the construction phase. The plant will employ around 400 people directly and indirectly by 2016, when it is scheduled to start operations. The company has access to a 450Mt limestone reserve.
A union official who represents about 500 workers at two existing cement plants in St-Constant and St-Basile-de-Portneuf reacted with outrage to the project. "Our members are very angry," said Daniel Roy, Quebec director of Métallos, the United Steelworkers union. "We just don't get it. The cement industry is already in an overcapacity situation and at any given time, between 100 and 150 of our members are sitting at home on temporary furlough. Here they are announcing a huge project like that. It will inevitably mean layoffs at our current plants."
Another irritated party is Lafarge, which has long complained that the McInnis project would benefit unfairly from Quebec taxpayer money and would further distort the market, which already has oversupply. In September 2013 a Lafarge executive warned that the four established players, itself, Colacem, Holcim and Ciment Québec, would be unfairly disadvantaged.
Quintiq to optimise Lafarge’s world-wide operations
21 January 2014World: Quintiq, global provider of supply chain planning and optimisation, has announced that Lafarge has chosen Quintiq software to optimise sales and operations planning and transport management.
The company will benefit from the Quintiq software platform across the entire organisation for demand planning, supply chain planning and transport optimisation. All cement, aggregates and concrete business lines in all countries in which Lafarge operates will be able to implement this system. The solution will reduce production and transport costs while increasing customer satisfaction.
Real-time collaboration between Lafarge planners will also improve the quality and transparency of the planning process. The use of a single platform for all planning applications will simplify Lafarge's IT landscape. The flexibility of Quintiq's optimisation technology enables the solution to be used to cover all country-specific business requirements.
5000 bags of cement sold in name of leading companies seized
20 January 2014India: Acting on a tip-off that was received by the senior superintendent of police, Manu Maharaj, local police raided a store house in Chamanchak state and seized 5000 sacks of cement that had been packed in the name of leading names like Lafarge and Birla. The raid took place on 19 January 2014.
Four persons involved in the trade managed to flee. A case has been registered with the local police station. Police are currently looking for the absconders and gathering information regarding similar cement store houses.
Lafarge sells Maryland aggregates assets for US$320m
13 January 2014US: Lafarge has announced the sale of five aggregates quarries and related assets in Maryland to Bluegrass Materials for a total enterprise value of US$320m, subject to relevant regulatory approvals.
With these divestments, Lafarge has largely completed its strategy of refocusing on its core markets in the US. The company now operates a strong network of integrated positions mainly located in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions. These include nine cement or grinding plants and associated cement terminals with a combined capacity of 11Mt/yr, as well as related aggregates and concrete businesses in these markets.
EAPCC chairman and board directors face probe
19 December 2013Kenya: The Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development has recommended that the East African Portland Cement (EAPCC) directors be investigated over a chaotic annual general meeting held on 17 December 2013.
Wilson Songa, principal secretary of the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development, said that the conduct of EAPCC chairman and board members, including chief executive Kepha Tande and directors Titus Naikuni and Hamish Keith and company secretary J Maonga should be investigated in relation to the AGM.
Songa argued that the AGM should be declared a sham and the company was directed by the CMA not to affect any of the resolutions passed at the meeting. Songa wants the CMA to order EAPCC to reconvene the AGM and an independent person nominated by the capital markets regulator to oversee the meeting. Songa also wants the CMA to confirm that the nomination and election of Didier Tresarrieu as a director was null and void since it was not carried out in accordance with articles of the company.
The current stand-off re-ignites a long-running battle for the control of the cement maker between the government and France's Lafarge. The Treasury holds a 25% stake in EAPCC while NSSF holds 27% shareholding. This gives the government a 52% stake in the company, which has seen it ranked as a state corporation.
Polish regulator fines cement companies for cartel
18 December 2013Poland: The Court of Competition and Consumer Protection (SOKiK) has upheld a decision by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) to fine seven cement companies for forming a cartel. However, the SOKiK lowered the total fine from Euro100m to Euro80m. According the UOKiK the cartel fixed prices and divided the Polish market among themselves for at least eleven years.
According to the UOKiK the cartel activities could have had negative consequences for the construction sector and had affected consumers. The cartel had almost 100% share of production and sale of grey cement in Poland.
During the investigation two cartel members decided to co-operate with the UOKiK in exchange for leniency. Therefore UOKiK decided not to fine Lafarge Cement and lowered the fine for Gorazdze Cement. The remaining five cartel members - Grupa Ozarow, Cemex Polska, Dyckerhoff Polska, Cementownia Warta and Cementownia Odra - were fined to the full legal extent, 10% of annual turnover.
Lafarge Tanzania inaugurates modern bag filter
16 December 2013Tanzania: Mbeya Cement Lafarge Tanzania has inaugurated a new bag filter which significantly reduces the stack emissions to meet the national and international standards.
The new bag filter, inaugurated on 13 December 2013 at Songwe in Mbeya, reduces the stack emissions to 10mg/m3 which is lower than the 2013 Tanzania Environmental Regulations of 50mg/m3 and is in line with the Lafarge Industrial targets as well as the global environmental standards.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Lafarge Tanzania's Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Langrency said that the company has invested US$2.06m in the project. "The inauguration of this bag filter further underlines Lafarge Tanzania's commitment to continuous improvement as part of the Lafarge Group Sustainability Ambition 2020, which is to have responsible and environmentally friendly operations," Langrency said.
Lafarge Tanzania plans to increase its cement capacity in Tanzania to 700,000t/yr by adding a new cement mill, a clinker line upgrade and a new packing plant. Project completion is expected in the second quarter of 2015.
Fracking up the cement industry
11 December 2013Water conservation is on the agenda this week with two water-related news stories from the multinational cement producers.
First came a story that Lafarge Canada is preparing to run a trial using waste water from hydraulic fracking at its Brookfield cement plant in Nova Scotia. Currently the plant uses 35ML/yr of fresh water from a nearby lake to control temperatures of its rotary cement kiln. Potentially some of this water could be replaced with water produced during the fracking process. This water would then evaporate and be emitted from the stack.
The background to this pilot project is that the Nova Scotia regional government introduced a two-year moratorium on fracking in 2012 while it reviews the situation. Given the high level of public debate on fracking, any process using waste products from it is going to receive a high level of attention. One of the major arguments against fracking concerns the toxicity of the fluids used. Hence Lafarge stressed in their statement how safe the waste water would be before it would even be used in the plant. Safe enough to drink apparently.
Focusing on the industrial aspects of the pilot for cement production, it will be fascinating to see what effects the fracking waste water might have even just as a coolant on plant equipment. Among other contaminants, fracking waste water often contains high levels of salt. Managing a transition from a fresh water coolant source to a saltier more corrosive one may pose the first of many challenges.
Later in the week Cemex announced the latest stage in its work on water conservation with the implementation of a corporate water policy. The policy aims to focus on resource availability, resource quality, and ecosystem integrity. It continues Cemex's Water Project, developed in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Notably Cemex's water policy aims to maximise efficiency by managing water consumption with increased captured recycled or captured water usage given as an example. How Cemex might use recycled water from a contentious industrial process such as hydraulic fracking is not specified. However, the policy does aim to actively reduce pollution and limit the effects of discharge upon water ecosystems from its operations.
Water policies such as a Cemex's are great for an industry that often has an image problem in the eyes of environmentalists. Linking cement production to fracking runoff will not improve this image. Yet placing science before lobbying is the way to go. Bring on the results of the pilot.
Lafarge earns US$60m/yr from clinker sales in Bangladesh
11 December 2013Bangladesh: Lafarge Surma Cement (LSC) earns up to US$60m/yr from sales of clinker to other cement companies in the country. The Bangladesh-based subsidiary of Lafarge imports limestone from a quarry in Meghalaya, India via a 17km belt conveyor to its cement plant at Chhatak, Bangladesh. According to the Financial Express, the setup is the only cross-border industrial venture between India and Bangladesh.
Lafarge US$5m plant to create 70 jobs
06 December 2013Zambia: Lafarge Zambia plc has commissioned a US$5m 600,000t/yr aggregate plant with the Zambian Government that is expected to create 70 new direct jobs.
Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Emmanuel Chenda, said that national roads infrastructure programmes such as the Link Zambia 8,000 and Pave Zambia 2000 require readily available cement and aggregate and the plant will ensure there is adequate supply for the project to be implemented effectively.
"The huge demand for cement and aggregates that the construction industry provides cannot be overstated. The market is ready and all you need is tap into it by way of increasing commercial circulation of the products at competitive market rates," said Chenda. He disclosed that Government has formulated mid-term policies and strategies to address constraints in the manufacturing sector such as high cost of production, limited access to long-term finance and weak linkages. The policies will be implemented over the next five years in line with the revised Sixth National Development Plan.
Lafarge Zambia chief executive officer Emmanuel Rigaux said that the aggregate plant can also be adjusted in terms of capacity, which will enable the company to supply more of the product as required.