Displaying items by tag: Maintenance

UK: Tarmac has completed a seven-week repair job on its PC2000 backhaul excavator at its Dunbar, East Lothian, quarry. The East Lothian Courier newspaper has reported that the work consisted of a rebuild of all major components, including the 11t bucket, pins and bushes. The equipment has been in service since 2014. It will next require servicing in 2026. Marubeni Komatsu carried out the work.

Quarry manager Mark Grieve said “With the excavator playing an absolutely key role in our process, this was a major project for Tarmac Dunbar.”

India: Gujarat Sidhee Cement has restarted the kiln at its Sidheegram cement plant in Gujarat. Reuters News has reported that full operations will commence at the plant on 25 September 2021. The producer shut down its kiln line for routine maintenance on 7 September 2021.

India: Gujarat Sidhee Cement has shut down the kiln line of its Sidheegram, Gujarat, cement plant for 17 – 20 days. India InfoLine News Service has reported that the company will carry out routine maintenance on the plant during the shutdown. It says that grinding and dispatch of cement will continue as usual.

Switzerland: Holcim Schweiz and Voliro have conducted the first official measurement drone flights at the Siggenthal integrated cement plant. The drone used took measurements to determine the steel wall thicknesses of the cement kiln and the cyclone preheater.

The companies have been testing using aerial drones to conduct inspection and maintenance work as part of Holcim’s ‘Plants of Tomorrow’ initiative. The drones developed by ETH Zürich spin-off company Voliro can be rotated around all axes by a special rotor system and can fly upside down. They are being tested in areas that are difficult for human employees to reach, such as the steel walls and casings of production facilities and silos.

Voliro was founded in 2019 and it is developing a new generation of flying drones for the inspection and maintenance of industrial plants. The drones can be equipped with a variety of sensors that perform visual, thermal and contact-based measurements. The drone's 360° design allows sensors to take measurements even on curved and inclined surfaces. This potentially allows hard-to-reach areas in a cement plant to be assessed without shutting down production. Holcim has been supporting Voliro's product development since 2019 and is providing the technology start-up with the infrastructure in Siggenthal for test flights. The building materials producer has also been supporting the project with its own knowledge about non-destructive testing.

Iran: Abyek Cement Complex has relaunched a 8500t/day production line at its plant in Abyek, Qazvin province following repairs. Alireza Razm Hosseini, head of the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, attended the event. The production line is the largest in the country, according to the ministry. Cement produced at the plant will be exported.

The Tehran Times newspaper has reported that the relaunch brings the total national capacity to 80Mt/yr across 74 plants. Domestic demand was 70Mt in the 2021 financial year, which ended on 21 March 2021.

India: Denmark-based Hasle has supplied a Hasle D59A coating-resistant castable to Asian Cement for use on the inlet chamber and riser duct at its cement plant. The supplier supervised installation. It said that the castable will reduce the required lining materials of the equipment, resulting in savings.

France: Fives has refurbished a rotary kiln at SOKA’s (Société Kaolinière Armoricaine) kaolin plant at Quessoy. Work on the project included: implementing a new nose-ring fitted with a downstream seal, to reduce false air flow and improve brick-lining lifetime; machining the tyres, replacing of the rollers and installing a new lubrication system, to improve the kiln scanning and enable an homogenous wear of the contact areas; and installing a grease spraying system fitted with a new girth gear housing to prevent advanced wear initiated by grease contamination. SOKA specialises in the extraction, processing and calcination of raw kaolin, refined kaolin and calcined kaolin in France and Ukraine.

Russia: Vostokcement subsidiary Teploozorsky Cement has engaged FLSmidth to complete two hot kiln alignments at its integrated Teploozorsky Cement plant in Oblu, Khabarovsk Krai following inspections. Vostokcement said that the plant’s second and third rotary kilns will need to undergo the process of adjustments to their axis and axial balance, in order to eliminate stresses to the kiln body.

Austria: RHI Magnesita has published a trading update in which it says that ‘the difficult market environment of the second half of 2019 continued into the first quarter of 2020, with limited impact from the COVID-19 outbreak.’ Demand remained consistent year-on-year, with its industrial division continuing to perform well, particularly in cement.” The company noted lower raw material costs due to ‘reduction in overall demand and uninterrupted supply from China.’ RHI Magnesita has increased its focus on cost management, temporarily closing one Mexican and three European plants, introducing short-time working and deferring at least Euro45.0m of capital expenditure in 2020.

In the second quarter 2020, RHI Magnesita said, “The trading environment has become increasingly challenging” as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, which caused a drop in ‘customer activity and order book levels.’ In spite of this, cement sector sales ‘remained relatively resilient,’ with some producers ‘accelerating maintenance work in shutdowns,’ partially offsetting the effects of project postponements.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s revenue in the first three months of 2020 was Euro607m, up by 2.5% year-on-year from Euro592m in the corresponding period of 2019. FLSmidth’s cement division’s sales were Euro240m (40% of total revenue), down by 2.6% from Euro246m. The company said that the coronavirus outbreak impacted results, especially in March 2020, when ‘customer hesitation on large investments intensified, particularly in cement,’ and customers increasingly deferred large investments. It added, “Demand for spare and wear parts is relatively stable, whereas technical services are challenged by restricted access to sites.”

FLSmidth says that it aims to ‘carry out business as usual’ throughout the coronavirus outbreak, with an increased reliance on ‘remote monitoring, maintenance and support.’

FLSmidth’s 2020 financial guidance remains suspended.