Displaying items by tag: Mill

India: Wonder Cement has ordered roller mills from Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer for use at the cement producer’s new plant in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.

An MVR 6000 R-6 mill will be used for raw meal. It will reportedly be one of the largest raw mills in the country. It will have a mill drive power of 6725kW and a capacity of 1000t/hr. It will include an integrated SLS 6000 VR high-performance classifier to meet a product fineness of 2% residue on a 212µm screen.

A MPS 3550 BK vertical roller mill will be used for coal grinding. It will be equipped with a mill drive of 1840kW and a capacity of 65t/hr petcoke or 100t/hr coal.

The project is being carried out in close cooperation between Gebr. Pfeiffer’s subsidiary in India and the company in Germany. The order will include Gebr. Pfeiffer’s 15^th mill for Wonder Cement. Installation of the new mills is planned by the end of 2026.

Brazil: Cimento Nacional, part of Buzzi, has selected Fuller Technologies to supply a second ball mill and separator system for its Pitimibu plant, replicating the equipment successfully installed in 2013. The original setup was a UMS 5.0 x 17 ball mill combined with an O-SEPA® N4500 separator, which has operated reliably for over a decade, according to the company. The company has now ordered an updated version of the system. The new package includes a next-generation O-SEPA® separator with a fine drive for increased rotation speed and high-Blaine cement output, and a high-efficiency air seal designed to reduce coarse bypass and improve final cement quality.

US: A new finish mill has officially been commissioned at the Durkee cement plant. The facility held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the occasion. The upgrade will increase the plant’s cement production capacity by 210,000t/yr without increasing clinker production or associated CO₂ emissions. The company said the new finish mill enhances its ability to deliver consistent, high-performance cement.

India: My Home Cement will build a new plant in eastern India, which will produce slag-based composite cement. The move is aimed at strengthening the company’s footprint in the region. Clinker will be transported from My Home Cement’s existing operations in southern India and blended at the new facility with locally sourced blast furnace slag and fly ash.

Gebr. Pfeiffer was selected to supply a MVR 6000 C-6 vertical roller mill, equipped with an 8200kW drive. The comprehensive scope of supply includes all components from raw material hoppers through to cement silos. The project is being carried out in close collaboration between Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) and Gebr. Pfeiffer (Germany), with customer support and plant design handled by Pfeiffer’s engineering team in Noida.

India: JK Cement has ordered the country’s largest raw material mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for its upcoming greenfield plant in Jaisalmer. The MVR 6000 R-6 vertical roller mill will have a drive power of 7400kW and a capacity of 1200t/hr. Fitted with an SLS 6300 VR high-performance classifier, the mill will deliver a product fineness of 1.5% residue on a 212µm screen. The compact layout enabled by the mill’s high power density will reduce space requirements for the planned grinding plant. The project is being executed jointly by Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) and Gebr. Pfeiffer (Germany), with completion expected by the end of 2026.

Iraq: Saman Cement has awarded a contract for the supply of a MVR 5000 R-4 vertical roller mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for the second production line at its plant in Al Mothanna Province. The mill will grind 450t/hr of cement raw material, drying feed with 6.7% moisture to below 1%. It features a 4000kW drive and an SLS 4000 VR classifier. This follows nearly a decade of operation by a Gebr. Pfeiffer MPS 5000 B mill on the plant’s first line. Sinoma International Engineering is acting as general contractor. Commissioning is scheduled for the first half of 2027.

India: Sagar Cement has ordered a MVR 5000 C-4 vertical roller mill for cement grinding at its Dachepalle plant in Andhra Pradesh. The new unit has a drive power of 3870kW, and will produce 210t/hr of ordinary Portland cement. The investment follows the installation of a mill of the same size at the site in 2018. The project is being executed in collaboration with Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) and Gebr. Pfeiffer (Germany), with Pfeiffer’s Noida-based engineering team providing full design and support.

Cementir Group launched two of its lower carbon cement products in the Middle East and Africa markets this week. We’ll take a look at this in more detail and cover other recent products news from cement producers.

Egypt-based Sinai White Cement will manufacture the products under Cementir’s D-Carb umbrella. One will be a Limestone Portland cement, to the CEM II/A-LL 52.5N specification EN197-1, with around a 10% clinker reduction. The other will be CEM II/B-LL 42.5N with around a 20% clinker reduction. Both of these reductions are in comparison to Aalborg White CEM I 52.5R. D-Carb is the name of Cementir’s product range for white low-carbon cements. It was launched in European markets in 2024, with II/ALL 52.5R cement, and then expanded to Asia Pacific regions, including Australia, in early 2025. Cementir says that its customers can switch to D-Carb from CEM I as it “integrates well with their production processes without requiring major formulation changes.”

In late October 2025 Dyckerhoff revealed that it was the first cement manufacturer in Germany to receive general building authority approval (abZ) for the use of CEM VI (SLL) cement in accordance with DIN EN 197-5. The German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt) granted approval for Dyckerhoff’s Lengerich cement plant. CEM VI is a newer type of composite cement similar to CEM II but with a lower clinker content. The SLL type that Dyckerhoff wants to make has a clinker content of 35 – 49 %, granulated blast furnace slag of 31 – 59% and limestone of 6 – 20%. The company says that this cement can be used in more than 60% of all concrete types produced in ready-mixed concrete plants. Its composition is also useful for low-carbon concretes when no fillers, such as fly ash, are available. Dyckerhoff added that the low hydration heat of the cement has a particularly positive effect in massive cast components.

Earlier in October 2025 Rohrdorfer held an inauguration ceremony for a new pilot unit for calcined (they say tempered) clays at its Rohrdorf cement plant. The pilot project started in July 2025 and has been processing up to 50t/day of raw clay. When Rohrdorfer launched the project in early 2024 it said that it was going to use waste heat from the main production line and was also considering the use of hydrogen to provide the remaining amount of heat required. Waste gases produced during calcination were also going to be fed back into the existing waste gas cleaning system of the clinker production line after leaving the pilot plant to further reduce emissions. Rohrdorfer said that its approach was going to be the first time waste heat recovery was going to be used in conjunction with calcining clay.

Meanwhile, in West Africa, Dangote Cement inaugurated its new 3Mt/yr cement plant near Abidjan in the Ivory Coast in mid-October 2024. Around the same time the company launched various products in the country, including its CEM I and CEM II brands 32.5R, 3X42.5N, 3X42.5R and 52.5N. This is a more traditional range of cement products compared to the ones above but note the highlighting of strength. This has been a key selling point for products in this part of the world previously, hence its focus. CEM II is a blended cement that uses lower levels of clinker. One clinker substitute in CEM II products is calcined clay. Gebr. Pfeiffer, for example, said in August 2025 that it was to supply a vertical roller mill to Ciments de Côte d'Ivoire (CIMCI) for clay grinding at its cement plant. There are also a number of other calcined clay projects in the Ivory Coast and other countries in West Africa. Further afield, JK Cement in India also started to market its LC3 clay calcined cement product line in October 2025.

Finally, US-based Amrize launched its ‘Made in America’ label for its cement range this week, “offering builders the guarantee of American manufacturing and quality, supporting American jobs and local communities.” Readers may recall that Amrize was recently owned by Switzerland-based Holcim. However, the company is currently keen to point out that its cement products are “made in the US from its raw materials and processing to manufacturing, meeting rigorous US performance standards.” Amrize does sell blended cements including FortiCem Portland-Pozzolan Blended Cement, ECOPlanet Cements and OneCem Portland Limestone Cement.

Most of the news stories highlighted above demonstrate a trend for blended cements with lower clinker factors. There’s no real change here. This has been happening for a long time and it is being driven by both profit and sustainability motives, although the current bunch of stories may also be turning up to coincide with the COP30 conference in Brazil. Note the inclusion of places outside of Europe and the drive for new blends. Another factor to consider here is protectionism in certain markets, as Amrize’s marketing drive suggests. New blends will also require new certifications, standards and approvals as is the case with Dyckerhoff’s work on CEM VI (SLL). The next trend to watch for will be the market reaction to carbon captured cements, such as Heidelberg Materials’ evoZero product. Will end users pay a premium for zero-carbon cements?

India: Nuvoco Vistas will invest US$24m to expand its grinding capacity in eastern India by 4Mt/yr, according to local press. A new mill will be installed at the Arasmeta plant in Chhattisgarh, with upgrades, process improvements and debottlenecking at Jojobera (Jharkhand), Panagarh (West Bengal) and Odisha plants.

Phase one will add 1Mt/yr by the third quarter of the 2026 financial year, 2Mt/yr by the end of 2025, and 1Mt/yr by the 2027 financial year. The company said that the work at Jojobera, Panagarh and Odisha will be achieved with limited capital expenditure.

Following the acquisition of Vadraj Cements, Nuvoco Vista’s total capacity stands at 31Mt/yr, with eastern capacity set to rise by over 20% to 23Mt/yr within 18 months. Capacity utilisation was 78% as of March 2025.

Ecocem announced this week that it has achieved certification in the US for its ACT low-carbon cement technology. This follows CRH’s agreement to buy US-based Eco Material Technologies, a supplier of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM), which was revealed in late July 2025. These moves and others mark a flurry of activity by various companies in the US SCM sector in recent months.

Donal O’Riain, the founder and managing director of Ireland-based Ecocem, underlined the importance of certification in North America when he said that “The US is one of the largest cement markets in the world, and this certification will support integration into existing supply chains and offers a pathway for the sector to rapidly decarbonise.” The country imported just under a fifth, 19Mt, of its Portland and blended cement in 2024 according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Ecocem started out as a manufacturer of cements made using ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), a SCM, in the early 2000s. Its ACT technology was formally announced in 2022. It is described as a process that can make cements using “available fillers like limestone and local SCMs.” It is currently scheduled for a commercial launch in 2026, starting in France. In the US it is planning to build a terminal and mill at the Port of Los Angeles in California. This follows a previous attempt to build a slag grinding plant, also in California, in the 2010s.

CRH, another cement company with strong links to Ireland incidentally, said on 29 July 2025 that it had agreed to acquire Eco Material for US$2.1bn. The latter operates a network of fly ash, pozzolan, synthetic gypsum and green cement operations. It partners with electricity generators to process about 7Mt/yr of fly ash and 3Mt/yr of synthetic gypsum and other materials. As CRH’s CEO Jim Mintern put it, “this transaction secures the long-term supply of critical materials for future growth and puts CRH at the forefront of the transition to next generation cement and concrete.” The deal is expected to close by the end of 2025. In separate comments to analysts Mintern added that he expects the market for SCMs to double in the US by 2050.

Other players have also been busy in recent months. Amrize, for example, noted in its financial results for the second quarter of 2025 that it had broken ground on a new fly ash beneficiation facility in Virginia in the reporting period. Last week, Graymont and Fortera signed an agreement to produce Fortera’s ReAct low-carbon cement product by using Graymont’s existing lime production operations. Fortera runs a plant in Redding, California that takes captured CO₂ from the adjacent CalPortland cement plant and uses it to manufacture its own proprietary SCM. Back in April 2025 Buzzi Unicem said that it had partnered with Queens Carbon to produce a novel cement and SCM. The start-up was intending to build a 2000t/yr demonstration plant at Buzzi Unicem’s cement plant in Stockertown, Pennsylvania.

The backdrop to all of this attention on SCMs in the US are the cost of cement and sustainability. Using more SCMs reduces clinker usage in cement and it can reduce the cost. At the same time reducing the amount of clinker used decreases the amount of CO₂ emissions. So, for example, Ecocem says that its ACT technology can reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 70% compared to conventional cement.

A report by Mckinsey on SCMs in the autumn of 2024 reckoned that growth in the cement market in North America was expected to be ‘robust’ in the next 15 years to 2050. However, the sector faces material, particularly clinker, and labour shortages. Enter SCMs! It went on to assert that much of the available stocks of GGBS and fly ash in the country are effectively used. Yet, traditional industrial SCMs such as GGBS, fly ash and limestone are anticipated to be available for longer than in Europe as industries such as steel manufacture and electricity generation will take longer to decarbonise. Hence companies such as Ecocem are preparing to import them, ones like CRH are cornering existing stocks and others such as Fortera and Queens Carbon are working on creating their own ‘virgin’ sources. At the same time the American Cement Association has been promoting the use of Portland Limestone Cement in the country.

All this helps to explain the interest in SCMs in the US right now. It’s a busy moment.