Displaying items by tag: Quarry

Uruguay: The Administación Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland (ANCAP) and the Administración de Ferrocarriles del Estado (AFE) have signed an agreement to exchange logistics services, materials and real estate. Under the deal ANCAP estimates that 380,000tt/yr of fuel and 390,000t/yr of cement and limestone can be transported by rail. The arrangement also includes: offering preferential transport rates to ANCAP; moving cement and limestone between ANCAP’s plants and quarries; conducting restorative work at ANCAP’s Queguay limestone quarry and its integrated Paysandú cement plant; and supplying rail ballast to AFE.

New Zealand: Stevenson Concrete is set to bring concrete made using CarbonCure technology to the country in July 2021. The Auckland-based concrete producer is currently conducting final internal quality assurance at its Drury quarry and concrete plant before opening the product up on general sale. Canada-based CarbonCure’s technology uses a CO₂ mineralisation process during production to reduce carbon footprint of concrete.

"Along with a number of other carbon-decreasing initiatives we are using, this technology is going to change the way New Zealand builds houses, footpaths, roads, pipes, and thousands of other man-made, everyday objects. Stevenson has brought it into the New Zealand mainstream, just as this technology is used in countries like Singapore, North America and parts of Europe," said Anthony Bitossi, general manager of Stevenson Concrete.

Israel: Archaeologists have identified a new precursor species of humans dated to 130,000 years ago among discoveries from a quarry run by Nesher-Israel Cement Enterprises site at Ramla. Called Homo Nesher Ramla, the species’ antiquity and proximity to Homo Neanderthalensis suggest it as a possible ancestor of Neanderthals, according to Reuters. This would contradict previous theories of European origins of our sister species. Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University say that Homo Nesher Ramla may have lived alongside Homo Sapiens for hundreds of years at the important junction of Africa and Eurasia now occupied by modern Israel, and could have interbred with our own ancestors.

US: The state Land Use Commission of Hawaii has approved Hawaiian Cement’s licence application for expanded operations at Pohokea quarry in Wiakapu until 2035. The Maui News newspaper has reported that the commission has ordered the producer to hold consultations with the US Department of Land and Natural Resources with regards to the management of possible impacts on yellow-faced bees. The insects were declared an endangered species in 2016. The bees’ welfare formed the basis of a challenge by the conservationist Sierra Club Maui against the licence extension.

India: The National Green Tribunal has received a complaint from the Jaintia Students’ Union (JSU) challenging the Meghalaya Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s approval of Star Cement’s Brishyrnot quarry expansion plans. The Sentinel newspaper has reported that the student organisation demanded the cancellation or suspension of environmental clearance for the expansion pending proper processes. It claims that the ministry failed to meet the necessary requirements for a public hearing. It allegedly did not receive no-objection confirmation from all affected local groups.

The Brishyrnot quarry currently covers 42ha in East Jaintia Hills district and has a limestone capacity of 2.5Mt/yr.

India: The state government of Telangana has renewed The India Cements’ mining licence for two sites in Guntur district until 2037. These are the Pondugula and Pulipadu mines, which supply the company’s Vishnupuram cement plant in Nalgonda district. The Times of India has reported that the producer first received its licence for the mines in 2000 and applied for the recent extension a decade later.

UK: Hanson, part of Germany-based HeidelbergCement, has supplied basalt from its Builth Wells, Powys quarry to the world’s first CO₂ sequestration field trial in the Brecon Beacons. The trial uses local live soil enriched with basalt for enhanced CO₂ sequestration in a reforested 11ha woodland. Enhanced rock weathering takes crushed basalt, a by-product of quarrying, and applies it to the soil to capture CO₂ and provide essential nutrients to fertilise trees and the fungi in the soil that support tree growth. The building materials producer says it is a method that has been proven to be successful in sugar beet and pea crops.

Sustainability director Marian Garfield said, “Hanson is focussed on climate protection and carbon reduction, and enhancing biodiversity net gain are two of our key 2030 commitments.” She added, “We are excited to be involved with this project, which aims to determine whether basalt can accelerate the removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere in the creation of new woodland and could therefore potentially play a vital role in helping tackle the climate crisis.”

HeidelbergCement confirmed the rumours this week with the announcement that it was selling assets in the western US to Martin Marietta for US$2.3bn. The deal covers subsidiary Lehigh Hanson’s US West region cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete and asphalt businesses in California, Arizona, Oregon and Nevada. This includes two of its cement plants, with the exception of the 1.5Mt/yr Permanente cement plant in California, related distribution terminals, 17 active aggregates sites and several downstream operations. The companies expect to conclude the deal by 2022 but naturally it is subject to approval by competition bodies.

Well, this is a big one considering that one of the catalysts for the group’s divestment plan was the reduction of the value of its total assets by Euro3.4bn in July 2020 following a review. Depending on the exchange rate, the value of the divestment to Martin Marietta covers half to two thirds of that amount. Group chairman Dominik von Achten later told the media in February 2021 that the company was planning to sell the first of the five assets in early-to-mid 2021. However, cement isn’t the full story here since Lehigh Hanson operates three integrated plants in California and seven terminals. So, by elimination, the Tehachapi and Redding plants are the ones that are being sold along with some combinations of the terminals. Both of those plant have production capacities of around 0.8Mt/yr. Unless the terminals being sold have been valued highly, then the majority of the deal appears to encompass some or all of the 25-odd aggregate sites, 15 asphalt sites and 30 ready-mix concrete sites the company operates in the four states.

On the cement side it doesn’t seem unreasonable at face value for the authorities to allow Martin Marietta to take over most of Lehigh Hanson’s business in the region since it should broaden competition from a production angle. Instead of five companies in California with integrated plants, there will be six. For Martin Marietta, the deal also carries the feel of unfinished business in the region since it briefly held a cement business there for around a year in the mid-2010s. It acquired Texas Industries (TXI) in July 2014 and then sold the cement business in California to CalPortland in September 2015.

Both companies are pursuing different strategies. HeidelbergCement says it is hunkering down on its other four North American regions – the US Midwest, Northeast and South, plus Canada - through selected ‘bolt-on’ acquisitions and plant upgrades. Martin Marietta says it wants to take advantage of long term demand trends such as increased state infrastructure investment in California and Arizona and private-sector growth. It also reassured shareholders with its version of the acquisition/divestment story by saying it was going to generate value the same way it did previously with TXI. It’s a small thing but the acquisition also sees the US’ largest domestic cement producer increase its production base. The top five North American cement producers will remain controlled by companies headquartered in Europe but it is a step towards regionalism.

As for who’s right, in the short term, the west coast region looks good. The area included some of the best performing states in 2020 in terms of growth in cement consumption year-on-year in 2020 with the exception of Oregon. In its winter forecast the Portland Cement Association (PCA) attributed growth in the Mountain region of the US (including Nevada) to underlying economic fundamentals and favourable demographic trends, although it expected this to slow down in 2021. In the Pacific region it forecast consumption to grow modestly in 2021 due to residential construction. As if to underline the current situation, Cemex decided to recommission a kiln in Mexico in February 2021 to cope with cement shortages and project delays in California, Arizona and Nevada.

In the face of these figures HeidelbergCement’s decision to sell suggests either it dangled a juicy proposition with good short term prospects in front of the buyers or its long term projections are pointing elsewhere. Selling up, yet holding onto its largest cement plant in the region, also smacks of hedging its bets. No doubt it will be holding on to a few terminals too. On the other hand, it would be very interesting indeed to know what part, if any, HeidelbergCement’s internal carbon price played in its decision to divest in the western US. California has the country’s biggest carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS). If say, legislators suddenly decided to follow the price trend of the European Union’s ETS then things might look different.

US: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Hanson has agreed to sell its assets in its US West region to Martin Marietta for US$2.3bn. The transaction includes the sale of its business activities in cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete and asphalt in California, Arizona, Oregon and Nevada, with the exception of the Permanente cement plant and quarry. The sale includes two cement plants with related distribution terminals, 17 active aggregates sites and several downstream operations. The companies expect to conclude the deal by 2022 subject to regulatory approval.

“The sale of our US West region activities is a major step in our portfolio optimisation as part of our ‘Beyond 2020’ strategy,” said Dominik von Achten, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement. “We are simplifying our portfolio in North America and prioritising on the strongest market positions.” Chris Ward, president and chief executive officer of Lehigh Hanson added, “We will accelerate the build-out of our positions in the four key regions Canada, Midwest, Northeast and South through selected bolt-on acquisitions and capacity expansion projects in the future.”

Germany: HeidelbergCement has launched the Quarry Life Award, a competition for proposed biodiversity-supporting quarry restoration projects. The company says that it is looking for projects which consider quarries’ impacts throughout their entire lifecycle. It is offering a Euro30,000 prize for the winning proposal.

Chief executive officer Dominik von Achten said, “The time for action is now - The World Economic Forum 2021 Global Risk Report has put biodiversity loss among the five most concerning global risks, both in terms of likelihood and impact. With the competition, HeidelbergCement wants to contribute to the global restoration agenda and work towards a net positive in biodiversity. Our sites can provide valuable habitats for a variety of animal and plant species during and after extraction.”