Displaying items by tag: Plant

Austria: Germany-based Loesche has received an order to supply a new raw materials grinding plant to LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge Zement’s Mannersdorf cement plant. The plant will consist of a type LM 45.4 mill, a LSKS type classifier, a rotary feeder, a magnetic separator, a conveyor, a pair of Hurriclons, a mill fan and the ‘Digital Ready 4.0!’ digital package. Loseche’s subsidiaries Kingsblue and AixProcess are responsible for the digital products and A-Tec for the Hurriclons. Commissioning is scheduled by the end of February 2022.

Cement and ore head of sales Stefan Baaken said, "Many cement plants in Europe are facing similar challenges to our customer in Mannersdorf. For us as an original equipment manufacturer and also for the customer, the new grinding plant is an important signpost towards more energy-efficient and sustainable cement production.”

One news story to note recently has been Cemex’s decision to recommission a kiln in Mexico to address cement shortages in the southwest US. In early February 2021 the Mexico-based producer said it was spending US$15m to restart a 1Mt/yr kiln at its CPN cement plant in Hermosillo, Sonora. The unit is over 250km from the US border but Cemex said it was making the investment to cope with cement shortages and project delays in California, Arizona and Nevada. At present it supplies over 3Mt/yr to California, Arizona, and Nevada from its integrated plant in Victorville, California and via sea-borne imports. Efficiency improvements at Victorville and other unspecified supply chain changes are also planned.

Cemex isn’t the only company with an eye on the south-west US. Around the same time Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement concluded its deal with Semen Indonesia to buy a 15% stake in its subsidiary Solusi Bangun Indonesia (SBI) for around US$220m. It’s a long way from Arizona but the related statement mentioned plans to make SBI’s integrated Tuban plant in East Java more export focused, with the construction of a new jetty and silos. It intends to export 0.5Mt/yr of cement to Taiheiyo Cement’s business in the US. Its local subsidiary, CalPortland, runs two integrated plants in California and one in Arizona.

Chart 1: Annual change in US cement consumption by state, December 2019 – November 2020. Source: PCA & USGS.

In its recent winter forecasts the Portland Cement Association (PCA) reported that the Mountain region of the US recorded the highest growth in cement consumption in 2020, at 10%, due to underlying economic fundamentals and favourable demographic trends. Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) supports Cemex’s view too. Ordinary Portland Cement and blended cement shipments rose by 21% year-on-year to 2.74Mt in Arizona and New Mexico in the first 11 months of 2020 from 2.28Mt in the same period in 2019. This doesn’t quite tally in California where shipments fell slightly, by 0.8%, to 9.42Mt. However, it reported 12% growth to 2.38Mt in the first quarter of 2020, suggesting that the market could return sharply once the coronavirus epidemic is better under control. Overall, shipments in the US grew by 1.03% to 82.3Mt in the first 11 months of 2020, driven by growth in central regions. The PCA expects national cement consumption to grow by about 1% in 2021 with a ‘robust’ recovery driven by residential housing but slowed by uncertain coronavirus vaccination supplies and general market volatility.

In a world with too much clinker production capacity, it stands out to see two established producers so visibly chasing market share in a mature market. Rather than building new plants, both Cemex and Taiheiyo Cement are using or reviving existing production lines in other countries, and building import strategies as well as optimising their existing facilities in the regions. With the western building material multinationals now often looking to focus on ‘safe’ markets in Europe or North America the fight to grow market share in these regions is likely to become more intense. It also complicates decisions about when or if an existing plant should be mothballed or shut. After all, Cemex’s old production line in Hermosillo is about to become very useful indeed.

Colombia: The Regional Autonomous Corporation of Antioquia (CorAntioquia) approved the modification of the environmental license of Cemex Colombia’s upcoming 1.0Mt/yr Cementera del Magdelena Medio integrated cement plant in Maceo, Antioquia. The modification will allow for the production of up to 1.5Mt/yr of cement annually. It will additionally enable the company to extract up to 990,000t/yr of limestone and clay. The producer called the authorisation an ‘important step’ towards the plant’s completion.

Cemex Colombia and Peru president Alejandro Ramírez said, "The modification of the environmental licence is a milestone that allows us to resume work to make this project a reality, through which it is expected that we will offer our materials for infrastructure and housing works in the country more efficiently."

Cameroon: Atlantic Group is planning to build a 1Mt/yr integrated cement plant in the Port of Kribi. Business in Cameroon has reported that the company has received all necessary permissions for the project. The group’s only asset in Cameroon is the 48,000t/yr Atlantic Cocoa plant in the Port of Kribi, commissioned in 2020. Parent company Ivory Coast-based Atlantic Group recently inaugurated the 1.5Mt/yr Société Ciment Côte d'Ivoire (SCCI) near Abidjan in Ivory Coast.

Kribi’s five existing cement plants have a total production capacity of 5.8Mt/yr.

Egypt: Misr Beni Suef Cement has ended a contract with Arab Swiss Engineering Company (ASEC). In April 2019 the companies signed a contract for ASEC to provide technical management at the producer’s plant. Reuters News has reported that the cement company will now undertake the operation of its production lines.

Saudi Arabia: Yanbu Cement has started a two months modernisation project on Line 4 at its integrated Yanbu plant. The company said that dispatches would not be affected by the stoppage due to sufficient clinker stocks. Line 5, which represents 60% of the company's total capacity at the plant, will continue production at full capacity.

The cement producer reported that its sales fell by 4% year-on-year to US$251m in 2020 from US$260m in 2019. Its net profit after zakat and tax grew by 9% to US$74.9m from US$68.7m.

France: Vicat recorded full-year consolidated sales of Euro2.81bn in 2020, up by 2% year-on-year from Euro2.74bn in 2019. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 6% to Euro557m from Euro526m. Consolidated net income rose by 8% to Euro172m from Euro160m.

The group said that organic sales were ‘strong,’ rising in all regions except in France, by 6% in total. It attributed the decline to a near-total shutdown due to the coronavirus outbreak in mid-March 2020, which lifted incrementally throughout the first half of the year. Vicat France’s cement business recovered ‘robustly’ in the second half of 2020, resulting in an operational sales increase of 3% for the year. Full stoppages of activity lasted for 33 days in India and for 30 days in Italy. Despite these challenges, business growth, cost-cutting and lower energy costs drove earnings growth, with ‘very sharp improvements’ recorded in the Americas and in Asia. Additionally, the ramp-up of a new grinding plant in Mali and production performance improvements in Senegal supported a ‘significant’ earnings increase in Africa.

Chair and chief executive officerGuy Sidos said, “Thanks to our employees’ tremendous efforts and commitment, the Vicat group strengthened its position amid the unprecedented current pandemic situation. Our resilience and flexibility allowed us to make organisational changes in order to reconcile our competing imperatives of keeping everyone safe and healthy, unlocking savings and making rapid adjustments, such as relocating our Paris head office to L’Isle d’Abeau in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Likewise, we made improvements to Vicat’s governance and stepped up our environmental and digital transformation programmes. Given the strength of our cash generation, we were able to resume key productivity investment programmes for the future. Despite the adversity we faced, our teams across all our various regions successfully delivered higher production efficiency levels and met market demand cost-effectively, paving the way for a solid increase in the Vicat group’s results.”

In 2021, the group plans to expand cement production and invest in new cement terminals in India and to continue with the upgrade of its Ragland cement plant in the US. It also says that it will ramp up projects aimed at meeting its carbon footprint reduction targets. The group expects its earnings to rise at constant scope and exchange rates over the full year.

Dominican Republic/Philippines: Cemex says that it will commission two new energy saving installations at cement plants in the Dominican Republic and the Philippines in 2021. In the Dominican Republic, a new 41MW solar power plant will partly supply the company’s cement operations in the country. In the Philippines, it will commission a 4.5MW waste heat recovery (WHR) plant at its APO cement plant.

US: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Cement has resumed work on an expansion at its 0.8Mt/yr Mitchell, Indiana cement plant with the execution of initial project plans and the delivery of materials to the site. Local media has reported that the upgrade will cost US$600m and create 1000 construction jobs over a four year project timeline.

Mitchell cement plant manager Tracy Crowther said, “We are currently receiving parts and over the summer this will continue to get busier. Much of the equipment will come in through a port near Louisville and will be hauled by truck up here. There will be some large equipment that will be moved in.”

On April 2020 it was reported that Lehigh Cement had suspended work on a 2.0Mt/yr expansion of the Mitchell plant to 2.8Mt/yr, on which it had broken ground in October 2019. The scheduled completion date moved to late 2023 from September 2022.

China: Germany-based supplier IKN says that its customer Jidong Group has started up a 6200t/day-capacity cooler at its Lincheng cement plant in Hebei province. The supplier also said that installation of another cooler for the cement producer for a new production line was underway and scheduled for completion later in 2021.Jidong Group completes IKN cooler installation