Displaying items by tag: Plant

Niger: Nouvelle Cimenterie de Niger (NCN) plans to start operation at its new US$90m integrated cement plant at Malbaza. Minister of Industry M Mallam Zaneidou Amirou visited the site to assess its progress, according to the Niger Inter Media Group. Work on the unit started in mid-2011 but was subsequently abandoned.

Egypt: Titan Cement Egypt is planning to spend US$8m towards building a 8MW solar power plant next to its Beni Suef cement plant. Surplus energy from the unit will be sold to the national grid, according to the Al Borsa newspaper. The project is at the bidding stage with contractors but the cement producer is believed to be in ‘advanced talks’ KarmSolar.

China: Anhui Conch’s sales revenue grew by 35% year-on-year to US$11.9bn in 2017 from US$8.85bn in 2016. Its net profit nearly doubled to US$2.51bn from US$1.36bn. The cement producer said that it had, ‘seized the favourable opportunities arising from the state’s further deepening of supply-side structural reform and the promotion of off-peak season production.’

During the year Anhui Conch opened eight cement grinding plants including Quanjiao Conch Cement, Anhui Xuancheng Conch Cement and Nantong Conch Cement. Outside of China the company completed phase two of its Merak grinding plant in Indonesia and started cement production and completed construction of the North Sulawesi Conch plant in Indonesia and the Battambang Conch plant in Cambodia. The units in Indonesia and Cambodia are due to start production in 2018. A new plant, Luang Prabang Conch, is being built in Laos and preliminary work on projects at Volga Conch in Russia, Vientiane in Laos and Mandalay in Myanmar is underway. At the end of 2017 Anhui Conch says it has a clinker and cement production capacity of 246t/yr and 335Mt/yr respectively.

The cement producer also announced that its Baimashan Cement plant was intending to start operating a CO₂ collection and purification pilot project in the first half of 2018. The initiative is part of the group’s moves to implement the government’s low-carbon development strategy.

Ivory Coast/Senegal: The West African Development Bank (Board) has approved loans for cement plant projects in Ivory Coast and Senegal. It will give US$47m to Ciments Du Sahel for it to build a third clinker production line at its plant in Kirène. The new line will have a production capacity of 2.7Mt/yr. It has also approved a loan of US$9.4m for Ciments de Côte d’Ivoire (Cimivoire) to build a new 3Mt/yr cement grinding plant in Abidjan.

Nigeria: China’s CBMI and LafargeHolcim have held a signing ceremony for a 5000t/day cement plant upgrade project near Ewekoro. The deal follows previous collaborations between the companies in the country, including work at Ewekoro and Unicem.

India: Anjani Portland Cement plans to build a new clinker production line at its Chintalapalem plant at Gudimalkapuram in Telangana. The plant has a production capacity of 1.16Mt/yr and this will rise to 2.31Mt/yr once the upgrade is complete. The project is expected to cost US$61m. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019.

India: A public hearing for a proposed cement plant to be built by Shree Cement at Ghantikhal in Odisha has caused concern among local residents. According to a report in the Pioneer newspaper, no local people were allowed to speak at the event. The hearing was held to obtain permission from the Odisha State Pollution Control Board for the project.

Belarus: A worker has been killed in an accident at the Krasnaselskbudmateryyaly cement plant in Vawkavysk. The 32 year old contractor was cleaning a heat exchanger in a storage facility when a layer of cement fell on him and a co-worker, according to the Belarusian Private News Agency. The man died at the scene from asphyxia. His colleague was taken to hospital with injuries. An investigation into the incident has started.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s sales revenue rose in 2017 but its sales volumes of cement fell. Its revenue rose by 31% year-on-year to US$2.23bn in 2017 from US$1.70bn in 2016. However, sales volumes of cement in Nigeria fell by 15.9% to 12.7Mt from 15.1Mt. Altogether, its sales volumes rose by 8.4% to 9.37Mt in the rest of Africa and fell by 7% to 21.9Mt in total. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 50.9% to US$1.08bn from US$713m.

“Although Nigerian volumes were lower in 2017, our Pan-African operations increased volumes by 8.4% and now make up 42% of the Group’s total cement sales, demonstrating the robust diversification of our business,” said Joe Makoju, Acting Group Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Cement. He added that the cement producer had increased its footprint from eight countries to 10 during the reporting period with the opening of new facilities in the Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, while its operations in Cameroon, Senegal and Ethiopia achieved ‘strong’ sales growth during the year.

Regionally, Dangote Cement said that its estimate for the total Nigerian cement market fell by 18% to 18.6Mt in 2017 due to a recession in the first half of the year and higher prices. It also noted that its Gboko plant in Benue State was mothballed for ‘most of the year.’ Elsewhere, it said that it exported 174,000t of cement from Nigeria to Ghana. In Senegal it introduced 32.5R cement to its product range. In Sierra Leone it opened a 0.5Mt/yr terminal and bagging plant in Freetown in early 2017. In Tanzania it said that its plant at Mtwara had lost earnings due to its reliance on temporary diesel generators. Gas turbines are scheduled to start operation in March 2018.

Georgia: Oman’s Raysut Cement has approved an initial study to consider building a 1Mt/yr cement plant in Georgia. The company’s subsidiary Pioneer Cement Industries Georgia owns a limestone mine with reserves of over 30Mt about 60km from Tiblisi. A final decision on the project is expected to be made by June 2018. Discussions have also commenced with possible partners for both equity participation and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracting.