Displaying items by tag: Slag cement

Austria: Rail logistics company ÖBB Rail Cargo Group (RCG) says that its haulage of 80,000t/yr of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) and clinker to and from w&p Zement's Wietersdorf cement plant in Carinthia by rail has removed 3200 trucks/yr from the road since its start in 2019. RCG's trains deliver the plant's clinker to the Peggau-Deutschfeistritz railway station in Styria, and return to the plant laden with GBFS from steel producer Voestalpine's nearby Leoben refinery.

RCG said that w&p Zement is currently working to increase its operations' reliance on rail, adding "Further innovative transport solutions are already being worked on."

A 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.

Australia: Hallett Group plans to establish a slag cement grinding plant in Port Augusta, South Australia. Magnet News has reported the cost of the project as US$83.9m, towards which the producer has received US$13.4m in government funding. The plant will produce cement using South Australian ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) from Nyrstar’s Port Pirie and Liberty Primary Steel’s Whyalla steel refineries and fly ash from the site of the former Port Augusta power plant. Its operations will be 100% renewably powered. An accompanying new distribution facility at Port Adelaide will ship the cement to markets. The project will create 50 new jobs.

When the Port Augusta grinding plant becomes operational in 2023, its products will reduce regional CO₂ emissions by 300,000t/yr, subsequently rising to 1Mt/yr, according to the company’s expansion plans.

Hallett Group chief executive officer Kane Salisbury said "We're talking about 1% of the entire country's 2030 [CO₂ reduction] commitment, delivered through this project." Salisbury added "We're looking at turning South Australia into a global leader in manufacturing green cement."

Spain: Cemex España has received clearance from the Balearic Islands Environmental Commission (CMAIB) to import up to 10,000t/yr of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to Majorca. Ultima Hora Online News has reported that the producer will substitute some of the limestone used in the company's Lloseta plant's cement production with the material.

Waste management company Tirme previously handled the Lloseta cement plant's slag supply.

Brazil: The Falcão Bauer Quality Institute (IFBQ) has certified LafargeHolcim Brasil’s CP III-32 blast furnace slag cement for all construction applications. The certificate confirms that the product offers 50% reduced CO₂ compared to the average cement on the Brazilian market.

The Jornal Dia Dia newspaper has reported that sustainability manager Bruno Hallak said “The IFBQ is an institution recognised by the market and this certification confirms that we are on the right track. The production processes and methodologies evaluated can even be reproduced in other units, according to their local characteristics, increasing the gain for the environment.”

LafargeHolcim Brasil previously obtained IFBQ certification for its CP III-40 blast furnace slag cement, which offers a slightly less reduced clinker factor than CP III-32 cement, in 2021. It was the first cement of its type in Brazil to receive the certification. The company produces both cements at its Vitória grinding plant in Espírito Santo.

France: 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.”

US: Cementos Argos subsidiary Argos Florida Cement has won the Slag Cement Association (SCA)’s Durability and Infrastructure awards at its 2022 Sustainable Concrete Project of the Year Awards. The producer won the awards for its supply of slag cement to two projects in Florida in 2021. Its involvement in the American Bridge Company’s SR 679 Pinellas Bayway Bridge – Structure E replacement won it the Durability award, while its involvement in Superior Paving’s State Road 52 realignment. Argos Florida Cement congratulated its customers, who also received the awards.

World: Market Research Future has forecast a 15% composite annual growth rate (CAGR) in global green cement demand between 2018 and 2023, where green cement is defined as fly ash cement, slag cement, geopolymer cement and other cements produced using alternative raw materials. Market Research Future predicts that fly ash cement’s global growth will be the sharpest due to its abundant availability. Its report concluded that cement sector strategies in response to the growth would include mergers, joint ventures and acquisitions.

Poland: The Building Research Institute has issued environmental product declarations (EPDs) for all six cement types produced at its Chełm and Rudniki cement plants and Gdynia grinding plant. The products in question were two CEM I cements, two CEM II Portland fly ash cements, another CEM II cement and a CEM III slag cement. Cemex Poland additionally obtained EPD certification for its Vertua Classic and Vertua Plus concrete products.

Materials director Michał Grys said “For us, product certification is another important step towards sustainable construction and a sustainable future. EPD declarations provide our clients with additional confirmation of the properties of products offered by Cemex Poland. They also improve their chances of obtaining LEED or BREEAM certificates for their investments.”

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has signed a 25-year occupation permit in the port of La Rochelle. The agreement will allow the company to build storage silos at the port near to its Bournezeau plant. Construction of the first two 3500t silos will begin in mid-2022 and are expected to be completed in the spring of 2023. The company intends to build a further two silos subsequently. The project investment is around Euro10m.

The cement producer says it met its target and sold 10,000t of cement in 2021. Sales were mainly of its H-UKR blast-furnace slag product.