Displaying items by tag: Plant

Canada: The Quebec Ministry of the Environment has ordered St Mary’s Cement’s integrated plant at Port-Daniel-Gascons to reduce its dust and other emissions to government-mandated levels. The notification follows an incident that occurred over the summer of 2020 and has reoccurred since on occasion. The order requires, amongst other measures, that the subsidiary of Brazil-based Votorantim allow an independent expert recognised by the department to carry out an assessment of air filtration equipment at the plant and propose ways to improve the situation.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement recorded a 48% year-on-year drop in its sales in the first half of 2022, to US$52.1m from US$101m. The producer’s net income for the half was US$4.73m, down by 51% from US$9.74m. It carries forward accumulated losses of US$315m.

Carthage Cement attributed its continued losses to delays to its commissioning of its upcoming new cement plant, as well as additional costs on top of the initial investment. It relied on short-term credits for part of the project’s funding. The company has restructured its bank loans and increased its capital to US$52.9m, in addition to an issue premium of US$10.8m.

Argos Honduras revealed this week that it has been testing the injection of hydrogen into the kiln of its integrated Piedras Azules cement plant. It has completed a pilot with Portugal-based company UTIS. As part of the process it has been trialling, it has split water by electrolysis and then injected the hydrogen and oxygen directly into the kiln via the main burner. The pilot has reportedly increased clinker production and reduced petcoke consumption at the plant.

Argos is far from alone in using hydrogen in this way. At the end of August 2022 Cemex said that it was also starting to use hydrogen at its San Pedro de Macorís cement plant in the Dominican Republic. CRH UK-subsidiary Tarmac completed a trial in July 2022 using hydrogen as an alternative to natural gas at its Tunstead lime plant. HeidelbergCement UK-subsidiary Hanson also ran a successful trial using hydrogen as part of the fuel mix at its Ribblesdale cement plant in 2021. The government-funded trial used a combination of hydrogen (39%), meat and bone meal (12%) and glycerine (49%) to reach a 100% alternative fuels substitution rate. In 2021 Hanson reported that fuel switching to hydrogen could help it reduce its 2050 CO₂ emissions by about 3%, or by -35kg CO₂/t of cement product.

Cemex appears to be a leader in using hydrogen in this way. The Mexico-based company started injecting hydrogen in 2019 and retrofitted all of its European cement plants with the technology to do so in 2020. It then said it wanted to roll this out to the rest of its operations. The project in the Dominican Republic is an example of this. In February 2022 it announced an investment in HiiROC, a UK-based company that has developed a method using thermal plasma electrolysis to convert biomethane, flare gas, or natural gas into hydrogen. The stated aim of this investment was to increase Cemex's hydrogen injection capacity in its cement kilns and to increase its alternative fuel substitution rate. Back in 2020 Cemex said that it planned to use hydrogen injection to contribute 5% of its progress towards its 2030 CO₂ emissions reduction target along with other measures such as increasing its thermal substitution rate and reducing its clinker factor.

As can be seen above there are a number of examples of hydrogen injection being used in cement plants in Europe and the Americas. However, there is very little actual data available publicly at this stage on how much hydrogen that the plants are actually using. For example, Cemex may have hydrogen injection equipment installed at all of its plants in Europe but it is unclear how many plants are actually using it. This is understandable though, given how commercially sensitive the fuel mix of a cement plant is and in Cemex’s case if it wishes to maintain a leader’s advantage in using a new technology.

It is interesting to see, in what has been released so far, the focus on doing deals with companies that supply electrolysis technology such as HiiROC and UTIS. A feasibility study ahead of the Hanson trial at Ribblesdale by the MPA, Cinar and the VDZ suggested that upgrading a kiln burner and adding all the necessary hydrogen storage and pipework could cost at least Euro400,000. However, this study also pointed out that the cost of hydrogen made a big difference to the cost of the CO₂ saving from using it as an alternative fuel. Hence the focus on the technology partners. It will be interesting to see how many more hydrogen injection projects are announced in the coming months and years and, crucially, who is providing the technology to supply the hydrogen.

For more information on the use of hydrogen in cement production see the proceedings from the 15th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition where presentations on the topic were given by Cemex and the VDZ

Zimbabwe: Government capital controls are delaying the handover of a new vertical cement mill ordered from China-based CBMI to Lafarge Zimbabwe. The cement producer still owes the supplier US$5.2m but has been unable to make the payment due to economic measures the government has taken to avoid depreciation of the local currency, according to the The Insider newspaper. The subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim is unable to obtain a certificate of completion from the supplier until the transaction has been completed. CBMI handled the order and Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer supplied the mill. The outstanding debt to CBMI may also delay Holcim’s deal to sell Lafarge Zimbabwe to Fossil Mining, which was announced in June 2022.

Pakistan: Cherat Cement expects cement consumption in Pakistan to fall by 3 – 4% year-on-year in the 2023 financial year, which will end on 30 June 2023. Amid the general decline, the company foresees a slight rise in areas devastated by recent flooding with the onset of repair and rebuilding works during the second half of the financial year. Exports are expected to fall by 20%, with prices remaining level while costs increase due to the high price of imported coal.

Pakistan Business News has reported that Cherat Cement is reappraising the investment cost and planned commercial operation date of its upcoming 8000 – 9000t/day new cement plant. It previously valued the project at US$158 – 173m.

Uruguay: The Administación Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland (ANCAP) has announced plans to find a partner for its cement and lime business. The state-owned company is attempting to restore competiveness to the national market, according to La República newspaper. It will first call for expressions of interest and then take selected offers forward.

ANCAP operates two integrated cement plants, a lime plant and an associated packing and distribution unit. It reportedly made a loss of US$15m in 2021.

Senegal: SOCOCIM Industries, a subsidiary of France-based Vicat, has reportedly stopped producing cement at its integrated plant at Rufisque. The move has been blamed on the high price of coal and other raw materials, according to local media. In August 2022 Dangote Cement placed all of the staff from its integrated plant at Thiés on leave for the month. The government previously set a so-called ceiling price of cement in 2019 in responses to high prices.

Dominican Republic: The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, has inaugurated the kiln of a restarted production line at the San Pedro de Macorís cement plant. The US$34m upgrade project was started in 2021. The line has a clinker production capacity of 0.5Mt/yr and it has been restarted to support the local market. The announcement follows the start of a project to use hydrogen at the unit that began in late August 2022. The plant also plans to increase its use of alternative fuels, move to using more CO₂-free materials and increase its use of additives over the next five years.

Honduras: Argos Honduras is set to start a new hydrogen injection process at its integrated Piedras Azules cement plant. During the process, water molecules are split using electricity into hydrogen and oxygen and then injected into the kiln through the main burner. The main objective of this technology is to reduce the use of fossil fuels, CO₂ emissions levels and energy consumption at the plant.

Luis Eduardo Tovar, the manager of Argos Honduras, said “We are proud to be committed to innovation and new technologies that allow us to keep our operation at the forefront of the industry. This project has allowed us to reduce our C0₂ emissions and optimise our processes to become increasingly efficient."

A pilot was previously conducted in conjunction with Portugal-based UTIS. It showed that by using the technology the plant could increase its clinker production and reduce petcoke consumption.

Cembureau called for urgent action on electricity prices from European governments this week to protect cement plants. Its maths was crushingly simple. One tonne of cement takes around 110kWh of electricity to produce. Electricity prices started to top Euro700mWh in some European Union (EU) countries at the end of August 2022. The association says that this represents added costs of Euro70/t of cement and a tripling of the total cost of production. This kind of sudden extra cost to cement production could lead to the widespread closure of cement plants and lead to chaos in the construction supply chain.

Previously, Cembureau reported in 2020 that electricity accounts for about 12% of a cement plant’s energy mix. In a dry production process plant 43% of this is used for cement grinding, 25% goes into raw material preparation, another 25% on clinker production and the final portion is typically used for raw material extraction, fuel grinding and for packing and loading. However, the cost of the electricity can make a big difference to the overall energy bill for a cement plant. When a report by the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) modelled a reference northern European cement plant with a production capacity of 1.0Mt/yr back in 2016, it concluded that the EU cement industry was spending around half of its energy costs on electricity compared to smaller ratios at plants in China, Egypt, Algeria and... Ukraine. That last country in the list is poignant given its unwitting participation in the current energy crisis. One other thing to note is that cement producers, as large scale users, may well be paying less than the wholesale prices Cembureau appears to be quoting.

The timing of Cembureau’s proclamation is pertinent because the EU and individual states have mostly been waiting until the autumn before revealing their energy support plans. However, the dilemma for Cembureau, and other industry lobbying groups, is how to protect their sectors whilst domestic consumers are threatened. The aftermath of the coronavirus lockdowns has shown what can happen when production of key commodities stops: supply chain disruption, shortages and price rises. One ironic shortage in the UK during the lockdown periods was that of CO₂, as high gas prices forced the main producer to shut down, leading to unexpected knock-on problems along the supply chain in areas such as food production. The same situation is reportedly at risk of happening again now too.

Cembureau’s wider solution is to link domestic and industrial consumers of electricity. So, some of its suggestions to policymakers are to use all available means of power generation, implement emergency measures such as price caps immediately, change the rules of the electricity market more generally to prevent future price shocks and to promote large scale renewable power source development. These are all things that could help both individual and industrial users of electricity.

Compare and contrast, then, with the MPA’s (Mineral Products Association) approach to the same problem in the UK. Its strategy instead has been to ask the UK government for tax cuts and freezes and to hurry along the forthcoming policy on support for Energy Intensive Industries. That’s not to say that Cembureau’s suggestions don’t also include some sector specific requests. It has asked that the EU temporary state aid framework adopted in late March 2022 should allow all energy intensive industries to have access to state aid covering 70 - 80% of eligible costs. It has also encouraged the wider use of alternative fuels, although it doesn’t link the reason why beyond reducing imports of fossil fuels. Lastly, it bangs the drum for its recent preoccupation, the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, this time adding electro-intensity as a main criterion for eligibility for compensation under EU emission trading scheme (ETS) indirect state aid guidelines.

Government support packages for the energy crisis are starting to be announced in European countries but the question for everyone is whether they and other actions will be enough. One problem for the cement industry will be simply staying on the radar of policy makers facing a crisis looming over their citizens. Yet if there is not enough energy to go around then rationing of some kind will be inevitable and heavy industrial users will be the first obvious targets to be told to cut back. Some months later building material supply shortages will hit. One national cement sector to watch in the coming months may be the Spanish one as it has long warned of the risks of high electricity prices.