
Displaying items by tag: Portland Composite Cement
Update on low carbon cements in Indonesia
11 December 2024Suvo Strategic Minerals said this week that it had made moves towards establishing a joint-venture between a subsidiary and the Huadi Bantaeng Industry Park (HBIP). The plan is to manufacture and sell low-carbon cement and concrete products that contain nickel slag and other byproducts. This news story is noteworthy because of the location of HBIP in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
In a release to the Australian Securities Exchange Suvo explained that HBIP is the managing company of the Bantaeng Industrial Park, where ‘significant’ quantities of nickel slag are stockpiled as part of the local nickel pig iron operations. HBIP will supply the nickel slag to the joint-venture. It will also give it access to infrastructure such as land, port facilities and utilities. Suvo subsidiary Climate Tech Cement, for its part, will supply the low carbon cement and or concrete mixtures and/or formulations. This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding in September 2024, in which the companies agreed to process the nickel slag into geopolymer cement and precast concrete materials.
At first glance Indonesia seems like an unlikely place to market a low-carbon cement or concrete product, given the large cement production overcapacity in the country. The Indonesian Cement Association (ASI) reported a production capacity of just under 120Mt/yr in 2024 and forecast a utilisation rate of 57% in November 2024. However, the government seems serious about reaching net zero by 2060 as the country’s economy develops. The ASI updated its decarbonisation roadmap in 2024 and the draft is currently under review with the Ministry of Industry and consultants from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).
In the latest roadmap, carbon capture is at least a decade away, with the first large-scale capture tentatively anticipated from 2035 onwards. Although Indonesia launched its carbon trading scheme in 2023, it is not expected to start affecting the industrial sector until the late 2020s. Instead, the short-to-medium term Scope 1 reduction methods include increasing the use of alternative fuels, reducing the clinker factor of cement and reducing and/or optimising the specific thermal energy consumption of clinker. Initiatives such as Suvo’s joint-venture in South Sulawesi tie into that middle strand. Separately, over the summer of 2024 the government and producers said that they were working together to introduce and promote the use of Portland composite cement (PCC) and Portland pozzolana cement (PPC). At this time the ASI reckoned that a complete change could cut cement sector emissions by just over a quarter. In June 2024 local media also reported that ASI members were planning to supply low-carbon cement for the Nusantara capital city project to help it realise its aims as a ‘green city.’
Semen Indonesia, the country’s largest producer, reported a clinker factor of 69% in 2023 for all of its cement products, down from 71% in 2021. Limestone was the biggest substitute followed by trass and gypsum. It is currently aiming for a clinker factor of 61% by 2030. In its Sustainability Report for 2023 it said that it was promoting the use of non-OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) cement “...according to the needs of construction applications.” It added that non-OPC products also had a “...5 - 15% more economical price.” However, the company has not said how its current sales are split between OPC and other products.
One of the surprises at the 26th Technical Symposium & Exhibition of the ASEAN Federation of Cement Manufacturers (AFCM), that took place in Kuala Lumpur in November 2024, was the sheer amount of work that has been going on outside of Europe and North America towards decarbonising building materials. The cement associations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand all presented progress and targets towards this aim at the event. Suvo Strategic Minerals’ joint-venture plans in South Sulawesi are another example of this trend.
Closing points to note about the Suvo project are firstly that it is away from Indonesia’s main cement production area in Java. Secondly, the presumption is that the low-carbon cement and concrete products manufactured by the project will either be cheaper than the competition or benefit from green procurement rules. Finally, nickel slag reserves seem insufficient to reshape the entire national cement market. Yet a general move towards using more supplementary cementitious materials could. Watch this space for more developments.
Read a review of the 26th Technical Symposium & Exhibition of the ASEAN Federation of Cement Manufacturers (AFCM) in the forthcoming January 2024 issue of Global Cement Magazine
Brunei: Heidelberg Materials Butra Sdn Bhd has become the first cement producer to receive a ‘green’ label certification for its Portland composite cement. The Singapore Environment Council awarded the certification, which recognises products meeting stringent environmental standards such as lower carbon emissions and sustainable material use.
Managing director of Heidelberg Materials Butra, Terence Ong, said “By offering environmentally responsible products, we aim to contribute to the nation’s infrastructure development while minimising our ecological footprint.”
Germany: Heidelberg Materials has secured a patent for a new method for producing Portland composite cement (PCC) using calcined clay and recycled waste cement. GlobalData News has reported that the process involves grinding clay with quartz and feldspar and calcining the clay, before mixing it with the cement. The PCC’s cement content varies from 30% to 80%, while its calcined clay content varies from 10% to 70%.
Alpacem opens new headquarters
06 October 2023Austria: Alpacem inaugurated its new headquarters in Wietersdorf, Carinthia, on 6 October 2023. The project demonstrated the first construction application of the group’s reduced-CO2 CEM-II/C Portland composite cement.
Managing director Lutz Weber said “With the most modern technologies for decarbonisation and our extensive building materials expertise, we have succeeded in reducing the ecological footprint of our Alpacem headquarters to a minimum.”
India: Four UltraTech Cement cement products have received Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) certification. UltraTech Cement's ordinary Portland cement (OPC), Portland pozzolana cement (PPC), Portland slag cement (PSC) and Portland composite cement (PCC) all successfully underwent lifecycle assessment studies in line with EPD requirements.
The Aditya Birla subsidiary said that 70% of its cement sales consist of blended cement. It offers over 70 different GreenPro certified products across its range.
Update on slag cements, July 2022
13 July 2022A trio of slag cement stories have been in the sector news this week with reports from Australia, France and Sri Lanka. Of note from the first two reports is a focus on supplies of slag.
The first concerns Hallett Group’s US$80m supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) project in South Australia. This will see the company process slag and fly ash sourced from sites in the region to manufacture blended cement products and standalone SCMs. These will be principally milled, blended and distributed from a site at Port Augusta. However, an additional distribution site at Port Adelaide is also planned that can both import and export the company’s products in a bid to cut down on supply chain risk, particular for its mining customers. The company says it will replace up to 1.15Mt/yr of cement when fully operational, although initial production looks set to be about a third of this based on local media reports. Commissioning of the Port Adelaide distribution hub is scheduled for May 2023, following by the Whyalla Granulator in January 2024 and the Port Augusta processing plant in June 2024. Pointedly, Hallett Group is explicit about where is plans to source its SCMs from: Nyrstar Port Pirie and, potentially, Liberty GFG.
The second slag-themed story hails from France, where Hoffmann Green Cement has acquired ABC Broyage, which operates a slag grinding plant in North Dordogne. Like the project in Australia above, Hoffmann Green is focused on its supply chain. With this acquisition it will be able to grind its own blast furnace slag instead of buying it. Raw blast furnace slag will be imported via the port of La Rochelle where the company has storage silos. It will then be ground at the former ABC Broyage site and sent on to Hoffmann Green’s H1 and H2 production sites, located at Bournezeau in the Vendée region. Finally it will use it to manufacture its H-UKR and H-IONA cement products. There is no mention of how much the acquisition is costing Hoffman Green. Instead the emphasis, according to company founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann, is very much to, “strengthen our control over our supply and secure our margins in the current highly inflationary context.”
Finally, the week’s third slag-themed cement story is from Sri Lanka, where local media reports that Insee Cement has started producing Portland Composite Cement, using SCMs such as slag, at its Ruhunu grinding plant. This story follows the trend of cement producers around the world switching to greater usage of blended cements, often for sustainability reasons. Unfortunately, political events in Sri Lanka are overshadowing everything else locally, with the president having fled amid social unrest provoked by the ongoing and severe economic crisis. To this end Insee Cement has astutely also donated medical supplies this week to the intensive care unit at the Colombo National Hospital.
These slag stories are important for the cement sector can be demonstrated by a recent update to the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo’s (CICERO) research on global CO2 emissions from cement production. When it published its estimate for 2021 it found that overall emissions were 2.6Bnt in 2021 or just over 7% of the world’s total CO2 output. What is worse though, is that its data suggests that cement-based emissions have steadily grown year-on-year from 1.2Bnt in 2002. Apart from a dip in 2015 they have kept on rising! This can mostly be attributed to the growth of the Chinese cement industry in the early 2000s suggesting that a tipping point may be reached in the current decade as lowering cement production CO2 intensity finally kicks in.
Slag and other SCM-based blended cements fit in here as they are one of the ‘easiest’ ways to reduce the clinker factor of cement and concrete and thereby reduce the sector’s CO2 levels. Hence they keep popping up on the various roadmaps and reports for the cement industry to reach net zero. The flipside of this however is that slag is becoming harder to source as the demand for granulated blast furnace slag increases and less new steel plants get built, especially in North America and Europe. Hence the focus on the supply of slag in the first two news stories above. Blended cements may be the future but getting there will be far from simple.
Sri Lanka: Insee Cement's Ruhunu cement plant in Galle has begun producing Portland composite cement (PCC) using slag and fly ash. Insee Cement first produced PPC at its Puttalam cement plant.
Insee Cement's head of products and solutions Moussa Baalbaki said "Insee Cement introduced PCC for the first time to the local market in 2021 as part of a two-pronged approach: to create value for our customers by augmenting the sustainability performance in their constructions, and also to steer Sri Lanka's construction industry towards ambitious, globally benchmarked sustainable goals." Baalbaki continued "We are truly encouraged by the growing demand across the local market for PCC, and trust our production expansion to Galle is testimony to our commitment towards sustainable production practices."
India: Nuvoco Vistas is promoting its products in Northern India with the launch of its Double Bull cement brand in the region. As part of the initiative it has increased its dealer network in the states of Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. It is also preparing to build a 1.2Mt/yr grinding plant at Bhiwani in Haryana to support its presence in the north of the country.
The cement producer manufactures Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), Portland Slag Cement (PSC), Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) and Portland Composite Cement (PCC) products. Its flagship brands include the Concreto, Duraguard and Double Bull products.
India: JK Lakshmi Cement has partnered with the Society for Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA) to integrate calcined clay technology into its operations in order to commence production of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3). United News of India has reported that the producer says that this type of composite cement reduces the product's clinker factor by 50% and its carbon footprint by 40%.
JK Lakshmi Cement said "This partnership will be a game-changer for the cement industry, giving impetus to its efforts in mitigating emissions, combating climate change and bringing a holistic change in the surrounding communities to create sustainable livelihoods in large numbers."
Eqiom launches CEM II/C cements in France
29 April 2022France: Eqiom has launched its new reduced-CO2 CEM II/C cement range on the French market. The range includes the Portland limestone, slag and clinker filler CEM II/CM (SL) 42.5 N cement produced at its La Rochelle cement plant. The cement is the first product to obtain NF certification from the Scientific and Technical Center for Building (CSTB) under its new standard designation EN 195-5. The producer says that in mid-2022 EN 197-5 will assimilate into the EN 206/CN standard for use in structural concrete.
Eqiom said that the range will offer its customers a more sustainable alternative to its other NF EN 197-1 certified compositions. La Rochelle cement plant operations manager Ahmed Mansouri said “We are proud of this result, which is the result of close collaboration between the different Eqiom teams. This commitment has made it possible to provide our customers with a solution with low CO2 emissions while guaranteeing sufficient performance so as not to impact practices on the construction sites.”