Displaying items by tag: Plant

We return to Brazil this week where Cimento Itambé has inaugurated a new kiln at its plant in Balsa Nova, Parana. The US$92m investment has added 0.6Mt/yr of cement production capacity to the unit, bringing its total to 3Mt/yr. Notably, the new kiln is intended to support the use of alternative fuels (AF) such as biomass and industrial waste. Local press reports that the new kiln can operate with a 50% AF thermal substitution rate (TSR) and in tests it has reached as high as 67%.

Local market leader Votorantim Cimentos has also embarked on an upgrade programme linked to increasing co-processing rates. In May 2025 it said that it had received and begun installing a new cement mill, supplied from China, at its Salto de Pirapora plant near São Paulo. Earlier in August 2025 it revealed that it was spending US$60m on upgrades at its Nobres and Cuiabá plants in Mato Grosso. A new cement grinding mill is to be installed at the Nobres plant. This should increase the site’s cement production capacity to 1.2Mt/yr from 0.6Mt/yr. At Cuiabá the company is installing a tyre shredding unit via its Verdura subsidiary to support increased rates of co-processing of AF. Work on these projects is set to start in 2025 with completion scheduled by the end of 2026.

These schemes are part of the group’s larger US$920m upgrade investment plans across the country. Announced in early 2024, this is intended to increase competitiveness and co-processing capacity and reduce CO₂ emissions. It will also add 3Mt/yr to the company’s production capacity. An investment of US$150m from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2023 to Votorantim to support the uptake of AF is likely to have helped the decision to upgrade. The company currently has a target of a 50% TSR by 2030.

Of the other major producers, CSN is also aiming for a 50% TSR by 2030. It said in its 2024 sustainability report that all of its kilns were capable of processing AF. It also highlighted upgrade work at its Alhandra, Paraíba, plant in 2024 to handle, store and transport fuels, including biomass. InterCement reported some relatively high TSRs at individual plants in Brazil in 2023. For example, its Ijaci plant in Minas Gerais reportedly had a rate of 42%.

National Cement Industry Union (SNIC) data shows that the co-processing rate of AF reached 32% in 2023. The union says that this puts the sector ahead of its next target of 30% in the mid-2020s. The next one is to reach 35% by 2030. For reference, back in 2019 the country’s Cement Technology Roadmap reported that around 60% of cement kilns in the country were licensed by environmental agencies to co-process waste.

Graph 1: Sales of cement in Brazil, 2017 - 2025. Source: SNIC.

Looking at the domestic industry in general, SNIC reported growth in 2024 and the first seven months of 2025. Sales for the first seven months of the year grew by 4% year-on-year to 38.2Mt. This has been attributed to the real estate sector, boosted by the Minha Casa Minha Vida housing programme, and an expanding job market. Yet jitters remain, with fears of an economic slowdown in the second half of 2025 and uncertainty on how new US tariffs might affect the cement industry indirectly. Despite only exporting around 65,000t of cement in 2024 though, the association is wary of any indirect effects of tariffs.

It’s no surprise that cement plants in Brazil are prioritising AF usage. The market is buoyant and co-processing offers one of the cheapest routes to decarbonising cement production in the short-to-medium term. Increasing the use of AF can also potentially hedge against the cost of imported conventional fuels, such as coke, that are priced in US dollars. This is one example of SNIC’s concern over indirect effects on the cement industry from US tariffs via currency volatility. Expect AF rates to carry on rising.

The 18th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition on alternative fuels for cement and lime will take place on 17 - 18 September 2025 in Milan, Italy

Zimbabwe: China-based Shuntai Holdings is reportedly in a legal battle with Bryden Country School in Chegutu over the construction of a cement plant 497m from its boundary, according to local press.

The Board of Governors said that the company disclosed its plans in February 2025 to objections from the school and parents, with construction still continuing despite a High Court order halting construction. The Board said that there was no supporting documentation for the company to operate, as the area is zoned for education and also hosts a secondary school and university. Bryden said that it lodged multiple objections against Shuntai’s environmental and social impact assessment, which it claims failed to address key health and safety issues, yet the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) granted approval in April 2025. The school has since reportedly taken legal action against the regulator. A High Court judge ruled in July 2025 that Shuntai Holdings was in contempt of the stop-work order, but construction reportedly continues.

In July 2025, Shuntai administration manager Yan Bo confirmed the company has invested US$70m in the project, which is expected to produce 0.8Mt/yr of cement starting in 2026.

Zimbabwe: The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has ordered WIH-Zim Cement, a joint venture between West International Holding and Labenmon Investments, to stop construction of its Magunje cement plant after inspectors found violations of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) conditions, including failure to compensate displaced households, according to Bulawayo 24 News. The EMA fined the company US$5000 and issued an enforcement order halting all activity until ‘EIA certificate conditions are adhered to.’

An inspection on 16 July 2025 revealed that construction continued despite High Court directives and community complaints. At least 20 households have reportedly lost farmland to a diversion road, while one homestead lies within the project boundary. Inspectors reported that WIH-Zim had already cleared 10 hectares of land and begun building staff quarters for 600 workers without meeting relocation requirements. The EMA also reportedly found that the company had failed to obtain a Communal Lands Occupation Certificate from Hurungwe Rural District Council. The EMA said “Continuous monitoring of the project is essential as this is a sensitive high-impact project,” warning that construction cannot resume until all affected families are compensated and relocated.

Local press reported in May 2025 that the cement plant was ‘progressing well,’ with the completion of site levelling and connection to the national power grid established and 60 local people already employed.

It’s been a sobering week for the cement sector in South Korea with the release of sales data for the first half of 2025.

Data from the Korea Cement Association (KCA) shows that local shipments of cement fell by 17% year-on-year to 18.8Mt in the first half of the year. The last time half-year output was reported to be below 20Mt was in 1992. The association noted that a ‘severe’ construction recession had continued from 2024. An uptick in demand for building materials is anticipated in the second half of 2025 due to postponed construction work but it is expected to be limited by a forthcoming government budget. The association said that output for the whole of 2025 is forecast to be “significantly below 40Mt unless effective construction stimulus measures are available.”

Graph 1: Cement shipments in South Korea, 2019 - 2025. Source: Korea Cement Association.

20Mt of cement output marks a dividing line in the South Korea-based market in recent decades. Previous economic low points over the last 30 years include the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s and the 2008 financial crash triggered by the subprime market in the US. However, on neither occasion did half-year cement output in South Korea fall below 20Mt. The current situation is likely to be reflected in the financial results of the local manufacturers, when they are released later in August 2025, following poor first-quarter figures.

The general construction sector is facing a tough time, with construction companies facing a liquidity crunch as lending rules have been tightened. At the same time prices and labour costs are both reportedly up by 30% in the past three years. One reaction to this in Autumn 2024 was plans suggested by construction companies to import cement from China. This gained some support from the government, which said it was looking at ways to reduce costs, but then faced opposition in the National Assembly. It is unclear what has happened since then, although KCA figures show that imports of cement grew by 40% year-on-year to 384,000t in the second half of 2024.

The cement producers have reacted by shutting down production lines in some cases. In April 2025 local press reported that eight of the country’s 35 production lines had been shut down. Hanil Cement’s Danyang plant had reportedly suspended two of its six production lines. One additional kiln at Asia Cement’s Jecheon plant was preparing to be closed at this time, with the manager citing the difficulty of coping with a 70% capacity utilisation rate. This would have brought the site’s number of active lines down to two of four. Another unmentioned kiln also reportedly preparing to suspend operations would bring the total of inactive kilns up to 10.

As might be expected in this kind of business environment, mergers and acquisitions activity has started. Hanil Cement announced in mid-July 2025 that it was preparing to buy its subsidiary Hanil Hyundai Cement. The transaction is expected to cut costs of the newly combined company and yield other synergy effects.

With its high cement consumption per capita, the cement market in South Korea remains atypical compared to peer economies in East Asia and Europe. Consumption dropped after a peak in the 1990s but it remained high by international standards. Hence the outcry about a half-year cement output bigger than most European countries can manage in a year. The IMF predicts a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 0.8% in 2025 in South Korea, with a faster pickup of 1.8% in 2026. Construction levels are expected to remain sluggish into autumn and start recovering in 2026. General market trends in developed countries suggest that cement consumption will fall further in South Korea in coming decades, especially as sustainability trends embed. Cement sales in Japan, for example, have gradually been dwindling since the late 1990s. One question here is whether the cement market in South Korea can continue to hold its high level of consumption per capita. It remains to be seen.

Tanzania: Elsawy Ahmed has resigned as the manager of Twiga Cement’s Wazo Hill plant. He had been in post at the subsidiary of Heidelberg Materials since 2017. He is now working as a technical consultant.

Elsawy started his career as a Quality Control Supervisor for Assiut Cement in Egypt. He later worked for Cemex Egypt and became a plant manager for Cemex in Bangladesh in the early 2000s. He joined Italcementi in 2006 becoming Maintenance & Project Manager for subsidiary Suez Cement in the mid-2010s. Elsawy holds a degree in chemistry from Assiut University.

Ivory Coast: Dangote Cement has announced the imminent commissioning of its 3Mt/yr grinding plant in Ivory Coast, which it says will take place in the third quarter of 2025. The company says that the investment is part of its drive to enhance its regional presence in West Africa. The company’s CEO Arvin Pathak noted that the plant will streamline and provide flexibility to Dangote’s exports in West Africa, which grew by 18.2% in the first half of 2025.

Dangote Cement is Africa’s largest cement producer, with a capacity of 48.6Mt/yr. It already operates in more than 10 African markets, including Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and Ghana.

Canada: Ash Grove, part of CRH, and Carbon Upcycling Technologies have broken ground on a carbon capture and utilisation unit at the Mississauga cement plant in Ontario. The project will use Carbon Upcycling's technology to sequester CO₂ from the cement kiln and use it to turn industrial byproducts into supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). Once operational in 2026, the facility will have the capacity to produce up to 30,000t/yr of SCMs.

"Carbon 1 Mississauga is a milestone in our journey to build world-leading, domestic supply chains in North America. It will stand as a testament to the shared commitment of our team, our partners at CRH and Ash Grove, and the local community who share our vision for a resilient, clean tomorrow,” said Apoorv Sinha, CEO of Carbon Upcycling.

The Carbon 1 Mississauga project is being delivered through a multi-stakeholder collaboration. CRH Ventures, the venture capital unit of CRH, has invested in Carbon Upcycling and is playing a role in scaling the company's technology. The project has been awarded around US$7m in federal government funding from the Next Generation Manufacturing's Sustainable Manufacturing Program, the Environment and Climate Change Canada's Low-Carbon Economy Fund and is receiving advisory services and funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.

This week Aliko Dangote retired as the chair of Dangote Cement. It’s a big deal, as Dangote founded parent company Dangote Industries in 1981 as an importer of bagged cement and other commodities such as rice, sugar, flour and salt. Over 40 years later Dangote Cement is the biggest cement company in Africa with a reported capacity of 52Mt/yr, operations in at least 10 countries and annual revenues of US$2.3bn. Dangote personally has also become Africa’s richest inhabitant along the way. It’s an extraordinary achievement.

As CEO Arvind Pathak, said in the company’s half-year report, “We celebrate our president, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who now steps down from the board, for his pivotal and transformative role in shaping the company’s growth, success, and lasting legacy. His visionary leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and unwavering commitment laid the very foundation of our journey. Under his guidance, the company achieved remarkable milestones, expanded its footprint, and set new standards of excellence across the industry.” Dangote is aged 68 years and his successor as chair of Dangote Cement, Emmanuel Ikazoboh, is aged 76 years.

The key acquisitions started in 2000, when the company purchased a controlling stake in Benue Cement following its privatisation. Then, in 2002, it bought Obajana Cement and started up its first production line at the site by 2007. Obajana has since become the group’s largest plant in Nigeria with a production capacity of 16.3Mt/yr across four lines. The company listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2010. Dangote Cement set up other plants in Nigeria and the Cement Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (CMAN) declared that the country was ‘self-sufficient’ in cement in 2012. Dangote the cement importer had become Dangote the cement producer. Then it became Dangote the cement exporter when it established its first overseas cement terminal in Ghana in 2011. Finally, it became Dangote the cement multinational when production plants outside of Nigeria started to be built in the early 2000s with units in Senegal and South Africa starting up in 2014. Today, in 2025, Dangote Cement has operations in Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

Naturally, one doesn’t build a conglomerate as large and successful as Dangote Industries without dividing opinion along the way. Issues on the cement side of the business include criticism of how Dangote managed to beat his rivals to buy government-run cement companies in the early 2000s. To be fair to Dangote though, other companies including Blue Circle and HeidelbergCement did the same thing at this time. Arguments about this issue resurfaced publicly in 2022 when the Kogi State Government took Dangote Cement to court over its ownership of the Obajana plant in relation to tax revenue.

Another issue in Nigeria in recent years has been repeated arguments about the price of cement. Despite the country becoming ‘self-sufficient’ in cement, the cost has prompted scrutiny by legislators. Meanwhile, Dangote Cement has continued to make handsome profits year after year. Outside of Nigeria, Dangote’s expansion plans haven’t always gone smoothly. Its plans to open a plant in Kenya, for example, appear to have been stymied repeatedly. Infamously, Dangote himself allegedly described Kenya as being more corrupt than Nigeria to Kenyan media. A long heralded listing on the London Stock Exchange never happened and acquisitions outside of Africa are yet to occur. Looking forward, future challenges include newer entrants into the Sub-Saharan African cement such as those from China. A sign of challenges to come include the pending acquisition of Lafarge Africa by Huaxin Cement as China continues to attempt to export its cement production ambitions.

As Aliko Dangote steps down as chair from his cement business, the potential for both his company and the continent it is based in remains high. Demographic factors favour economic growth in Africa in the 21st Century due to its growing population and need for development. This will require plenty of cement and Dangote Cement is well positioned to supply it.

And finally… some people take up gardening in their retirement. Should Dangote become bored in his retirement from the cement business though he could consider the example of the former CEO of Ireland-based CRH. It was announced last week that Albert Manifold has been appointed as the chair of oil and gas company BP. Dangote Group already operates an oil refinery. Perhaps future opportunities beckon.

US: Eco Material Technologies, a marketer of supplementary cementitious materials and producer of green cement products in North America, has announced the opening of its new Lakeview Plant in southern Oregon. This milestone marks Eco Material’s first sustainably-built manufacturing hub in the Pacific Northwest.

Adjacent to Lake County's freight rail line, the Lakeview Plant can produce up to 0.3Mt/yr of low‑carbon cement replacements. By replacing 25 - 100% of traditional Portland cement in concrete mixes with Eco Material’s advanced supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) and proprietary ‘green cement’ blends, producers can reduce the carbon footprint of the cement portion of their concrete by up to 80%.

The Lakeview plant will create 30 permanent jobs, including skilled manufacturing roles and logistics positions. Approximately 75% of shipments will be distributed by rail using existing infrastructure.

“This facility represents more than just a new plant. It’s a powerful investment in Lake County’s future,” said Mark Albertson, Lake County Commissioner. “By pairing advanced, low-carbon building materials with local job creation and infrastructure development, Eco Material Technologies is bringing both economic vitality and environmental responsibility to our community. We’re proud to welcome this transformative project while creating a great partnership to benefit all of Lake County."

France: Vicat’s sales remained stable at €1.89bn on a like-for-like basis in the first half of 2025. This was attributed to negative currency exchange effects in Brazil, Egypt and Türkiye, and a slowdown in activity in the US. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 2% year-on-year to €331m from €353m in the same period in 2024. Cement and concrete sales volumes dropped by 2.5% to 13.7Mt and 3.9% to 4.4Mm³ respectively. Aggregates volumes rose by 5.8% to 11.3Mt. By region sales revenue and earnings fell in France yet rose in the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean. It fell elsewhere.

“The group continues to implement its market plan, with the start-up of Kiln 6 in Senegal, a major driver of the group’s organic growth, development in the construction chemicals business with the merger between VPI and Cermix, and the acquisition of Realmix, which strengthens the group’s vertical integration in Brazil,” said Guy Sidos, Vicat’s chair and CEO.