Displaying items by tag: Sinoma

Philippines: Holcim Philippines plans to invest US$4.18m in upgrades to its cement plants at La Union, Bacnotan, and Lugait, Misamis Oriental to improve business and sustainability performance.

The subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim held a ceremonial signing ceremony on 7 July 2021 to award the contract to Sinoma CBMIPH Construction to install a drying facility at the La Union plant. The project is intended to reduce the fuel consumption of the unit by reusing hot gases from operations to dry materials. The integrated plant was recently awarded an ISO 45001:2018 for Occupational Health and Safety Management System and recertified for ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System) and ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) by certification body TÜV Rheinland. Holcim Philippines has also contracted Sinoma CBMIPH to install a drying facility at its Lugait plant that will reduce moisture of raw materials to improve grinding operations. The La Union and Lugait projects are scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022 and by the end of October 2021 respectively.

In January 2021, Holcim Philippines also started projects worth US$2.42m to raise the efficiency of converting qualified waste materials to alternative fuels of its cement plant in Bulacan, Norzagaray. These will enable its Geocycle subsidiary to support the Bulacan plant to increase its thermal substitution rate by using more post-consumer and municipal solid wastes as alternative fuels.

Philippines: China-based Sinoma Construction will renovate Holcim Philippines’ La Union cement plant in Bacnotan, North Luzon. Seetao News has reported that the company signed a contract with the subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim in July 2021. The work involves a capacity expansion, renovation and de-bottlenecking. The aims of the projects are to promote the modular grinding station market and expand Holcim’s Philippines business and deepen its localisation.

Argentina: Loma Negra has ignited its new 2.7Mt/yr kiln line at the L’Amalí cement plant in Olavarría. The Clarín newspaper has reported that the new second line expands the plant’s capacity by 40%. The cost of its construction was US$350m.

Chief executive officer Sergio Faifman called the project’s completion a ‘milestone’ in the company’s history. He said, “I would like to thank everyone who was working on the site: Loma Negra employees, Sinoma and contracting companies. We have had and gone through economic and social difficulties and it is thanks to the efforts of all that we are here today. With effort and commitment, dedication and teamwork, you can go a long way.”

The latest piece of China-based Huaxin Cement’s global ambitions slotted into place this week with the news that it is preparing to buy plants in Zambia and Malawi. Its board of directors has approved plans to spend US$150m towards acquiring a 75% stake in Lafarge Zambia and US$10m on a 100% stake in Lafarge Cement Malawi. The move will gain it two integrated plants with a combined production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr in Zambia, and a 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant in Malawi.

This latest proposed acquisition represents the next step for Huaxin Cement in Africa following its purchase of African Tanzanian Maweni Limestone from ARM Cement in mid-2020. The company has also been busy along the more traditional Belt and Road Initiative land routes in Asia. It started up the kiln at its new 2Mt/yr Jizzakh cement plant in mid-2020. Elsewhere in Central Asia it runs two plants in Tajikistan and one plant in Kyrgyzstan via various indirectly-owned subsidiaries. While in South Asia it runs a plant in Nepal and in South-East Asia it runs one in Cambodia. If the plans in Zambia and Malawi pay off then it will give the Chinese producer a growing presence in East Africa, with plants in three countries.

The China Cement Association ranked Huaxin Cement as the country’s fifth largest clinker producer in 2021 with an integrated capacity base of just under 63Mt/yr. Domestically, the company operates 57 cement plants and most of these are based in the Yangtze River Economic Belt region. In 2020 it reported cement and clinker sales of 76Mt, a small decrease from 2019. Its operating income fell by 6.6% year-on-year to US$4.58bn and profit dropped by 12% to US$1.2bn. This performance was blamed on the emergence of Covid-19 at the start of 2020 and then floods later in the year.

Compared to the other larger Chinese cement producers, Huaxin Cement roughly appears to be holding rank with its overseas expansions. The leaders, CNBM and Anhui Conch, hold subsidiaries with plants in South-East and Central Asia and CNBM’s engineering wing, Sinoma, has a far bigger reach, building plants all over the place. Information has been scarce since mid-2020 on the long heralded 7Mt/yr plant in Tanzania due to be built by Sinoma and local subsidiary Hengya Cement. At that time local residents in Mtimbwani, Mkinga District were reportedly being compensated for their land. Other than this, one of the other big players internationally is Taiwan Cement. In 2018 it invested around US$1.1bn for a 40% stake in Turkey-based Oyak Cement. As well as a presence in Turkey this also gave it a share of plants in Portugal in 2019 when Oyak completed its acquisition of Cimpor.

Elsewhere this week, carrying some of the themes above with expansion in Central Asia, two new integrated cement plant projects were announced in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan respectively. Meanwhile, Italcementi said it will invest Euro5.0m to restart clinker production at its Trentino cement plant in Sarche di Madruzzo, Italy. The unit has been operating as a grinding plant since 2015. This might be viewed as an unexpected decision considering the high local CO2 price but it shows some level of confidence in the local market by Italcementi and its parent company, HeidelbergCement. The next step will be when or if a European producer decides to build a brand new integrated plant in Italy or elsewhere.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement and China-based China Sinoma Energy Conservation have signed a deal to upgrade the waste heat recovery (WHR) units on both production lines at the integrated Pezu cement plant. When the project is completed it will increase the output to 14MW from 10MW at present. No value for the order has been disclosed. Sinoma supplied the plant’s original WHR units in 2017.

Senegal: China-based Sinoma Group subsidiary CBMI Construction has awarded a contract to Denmark-based FLSmidth for the supply of three control systems for one new and two existing lines at the Kirène cement plant in Thiès region. The lines will share a digital infrastructure built on the FLSmidth ECS/ControlCenter platform with ECS/PlantDataManagement software. Additionally, the supplier will equip the new Line 3 with its ECS/CemScanner and QCX/BlendExpert. It said that the setup will use 12,000 data points on Line 3 alone.

Group digital general manager Jens Adler said, “With more than 1500 active product and process control installations in the cement industry, this order reaffirms our strong digital expertise.” He added “Digitalisation is transforming how many in the cement industry respond to increasing demands for emission reductions and efficiency. This is reflected in the emphasis on digital solutions as part of our MissionZero ambition to offer cement producers zero emission cement production by 2030.”

Oman: Raysut Cement has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 9MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit at its Salalah cement plant. The Times of Oman newspaper has reported that China-based Sinoma Overseas Development will undertake the engineering, procurement and construction work on the project.

The producer said that the installation “Will contribute significantly to our ambitious targets such as reducing power consumption by 25 - 30%, reducing CO₂ emissions and above all reducing in water consumption by more than 50%.”

Nigeria: China-based Sinoma CBMI Construction has signed an agreement with BUA Cement to build three 3Mt/yr plants in Adamawa, Edo and Sokoto states respectively. When completed by the end of 2022, the projects will bring the producer’s installed capacity to 20Mt/yr, according to the Vanguard newspaper.

The deal is Nigeria’s largest ever single contract for the construction of cement plants. the project will cost US$1.05bn.

Uzbekistan: Karauzak Cement has signed a contract for China-based Tianjin Cement Industry Design and Research Institute (Sinoma TCDRI) to supply a 1.6Mt/yr clinker plant for US$273m. The scope of supply includes a full production line from raw material crushing to shipping finished cement. The project will be located in Nukus District in Karakalpakstan. Commissioning is expected within about two years after advance payment is received.

Senegal: Sinoma subsidiaries Sinoma International Engineering and Sinoma Construction have signed a contract with Les Ciments Du Sahel for the upgrade of its 3.0Mt/yr Kirene cement plant in Dakar Region. The Euro245m contract stipulates that a new 6000t/day capacity cement production line will replace the plant’s old third line. Sinoma says that the new line will grind its first batch of cement from clinker in February 2022 and produce its own cement and clinker from October 2022. The group said, “We believe that the contract ought to present no significant challenge for the company.”