Displaying items by tag: Raw Materials

Bangladesh: The Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA) says a new import tax on raw materials and a distribution levy will increase the price of cement and place a burden on the construction industry. The new duties will add 8% to the existing 15% of value-added tax (VAT) already liable on raw materials, according to the Daily Sun newspaper. The association is lobbying against the government’s proposed budget for 2019 – 2020. It has described the new budget as business friendly but not favourable for the cement sector. Any additional taxes are also expected to worsen the effect of growing international prices of raw materials.

Ethiopia: A new bag-packing unit at Dangote Cement Ethiopia’s Mugher plant in Oromia is unable to start operation due to a lack of raw materials. The US$20m polypropylene bag plant was completed in April 2018 but it is restricted by government controls on foreign currency that are limiting its import of input materials, according to the Reporter newspaper. The unit can produce up to 120 million bags per year.

The cement producer has also suspended plans to build a second 2.5Mt/yr production line at the plant. An agreement was signed with China’s Sinoma International for the project but it has since been abandoned due to a shortage of foreign currency, a lack of electrical power and general security issues. Deep Kamara, the country manager of Dangote Cement Ethiopia, was killed in an gun attack in mid-2018. No one has been arrested in relation to the murder.

Qatar: Mohamed Ali al-Sulaity, the general manager of the Qatar National Cement Company, says that a blockade of the country by neighbouring states has not effected its cement production. Al-Sulaity said that the cement producer has secured supplies of raw materials and is importing gypsum and iron oxide from Oman, according to the Al Sharq newspaper. He added that bags are being imported from Kuwait.

The company says that it has a surplus of cement production and is able to meet the country’s demand. It plans to operate its 5000t/day kiln number 5 in September 2017 that will increase its clinker production capacity to 19,000t/day and its cement capacity to 21,000t/day.

Several Middle Eastern countries – including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt – cut diplomatic links and implemented trade and travel embargos with Qatar in June 2017 over alleged links to terrorist groups and links to Iran.

Sri Lanka: Tokyo Cement Group entered into a collaboration agreement with Ube Industries from 1 August 2016 for technical support services and to import raw materials from Japan, to manufacture ‘high quality’ cement.

Nepal: Udayapur Cement Industries (UCI) has had to pull its shutters down due to the disruption in vehicle movement caused by ongoing strikes.

UCI's General Manager Surendra Poudel said that the plant incurred a US$3.01m loss after it was unable to operate due to lack of raw materials. Cement production came to a halt after raw materials could not be supplied due to the protracted strikes in the plains for the last three months. Poudel said UCI was only able to produce 70% of its installed cement capacity in the last two months. Reportedly, it needs 100t/day of coal and 2000L/day of diesel. However, the required raw materials could not be supplied from India due to the blockade at the border points and general strike.

"It had become impossible to even manage the daily administrative expenses," said Poudel. The plant's total expenditure is around US$4.52m/month, including US$301,339 for salaries and US$90,428 for electricity and other expenses. Poudel said they would not be able to pay the salaries and electricity bills if the crisis persisted for one more month.

India: According to the latest data from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), the utilisation of hazardous waste as an alternative fuel and raw material (AFR) in cement kilns has increased by a factor of 35 since 2009 – 2010 from 15,693t/yr to 543,569t/yr in 2013 - 2014.

This follows the GPCB's measures to strike a balance between the disposal of toxic hazardous wastes, environmental protection and economic interests. Safe disposal of toxic hazardous waste posed a major challenge before the state pollution regulator took up disposal through cement kilns under controlled conditions.

In 2011 Gujarat State generated 109Bnt/yr of incinerable waste, 1107Bnt/yr of land-fillable waste and 577Bnt/yr of recyclable hazardous waste. These included plastic waste, spent carbon, tar, mixed waste liquid, pharmaceutical waste, tyre chips, agricultural waste, solid waste, chemical gypsum, iron sludge, copper slag and fly ash.

The GPCB encouraged major industrial clusters and cement plants to provide waste collection centres and pre-processing facilities for hazardous waste for co-processing. "It is a recovery of energy and material from waste," said Hardik Shah, member secretary of the GPCB. "The challenging task was to convince the top management of cement plants." The GPCB facilitated cement makers with access to its data on the waste generated in the State via Extended Green Node (XGN) software, which ensured the supply of suitable wastes.

"This involves some additional investment, but in the long run it repays as there are savings on fuel costs," said an Ambuja Cement spokesperson. Ambuja has invested US$16.7m to set up a pre-processing facility of solid/semi-solid waste at its Ambujanagar plant in Junagadh District, Gujarat State.

Similarly, Sanghi Industries is in the trial phase for using hazardous waste. "From a legal standpoint, we need to get clearance from the GPCB for co-processing any new waste material in our plant," said Alok Sanghi, director of Sanghi. "We have submitted the results of the trials conducted and are awaiting clearance from them." Sanghi has been doing trials for last 18 months.

"The use of alternative fuel in Indian cement industries has been limited," said GPCB's Shah. "The thermal substitution rate (TSR) in the cement industry is less than 1% in India as against 10% in Japan and 40% in European nations. The GPCB has set a target of three years to achieve a TSR of 10% by using AFR."