Displaying items by tag: Spain

Spain: FYM, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement, is facing a potential legal battle to expand the quarry at its La Araña cement plant near Malaga. It has applied to the local government for a compulsory order to buy land at the site, according to the Diario Sur newspaper. FYM says that it has the authorisation to use up to 176 hectares near its plant for mineral extraction but that it is only using 43 hectares at present. The agreement in place allows the cement producer to buy land on a compulsory basis if an agreement can’t be reached with the land owners. However, the current land owner and FYM have disagreed over the price.

Spain: The Port of Alicante is undergoing a Euro3m upgrade to build a new dock that can support larger vessels. Once completed the upgrade will allow ships with a length of up to 240m to dock, according to the Diario Informacion newspaper. Previously the port could only support ships of up to 165m. The site processes large volumes of cement and clinker and dust mitigation measures are also being installed.

Spain: LafargeHolcim Spain has appointed Alberto del Valle as its director of Human Resources and Communications. Del Valle, an industrial engineer trained at the Charles III University of Madrid, holds over 15 years of experience in the construction industry. In 2008 he became the Director of Compensation and Benefits for Holcim Spain, before later becoming the Compensation and Benefits Manager Europe Region for LafargeHolcim in 2014 and the Career and Talent Manager Europe and Trading at LafargeHolcim Europe in 2016. His latest position also sees him become a member of the management committee of LafargeHolcim Spain.

Spain: Cementos Alfa, part of Cementos Portland Valderrivas Group, has received permission from the Ministry of Environment to expand its quarry. The approval also allows the cement producer to expand the area of its quarry, according to the El Diario Montañés newspaper. The quarry currently produces 0.6Mt/yr of limestone and marl that are used for clinker production at the neighbouring plant.

Lots of facts stuck out from the inaugural Global GypSupply Conference that took place in Brussels last week. One was that Spain exported 1.49Mt of raw gypsum to West Africa in 2016. The data point from Spanish customs popped up in a presentation by Mohamed El Moustapha, the managing director of a gypsum mining company based in Mauritania. He was using the figures to reinforce the opportunities for his company to supply the growing cement industry in West Africa. Yet the size of the market has implications for the oft-repeated claims of cement sector self-sufficiency that various countries in the region have cried out for.

Gypsum is used as a retarding agent to control the setting time of cement. It gets added whilst clinker is ground into cement. Roughly speaking, cement production requires about 5% of gypsum. So a 1Mt/yr cement plant would require around 50,000t/yr of gypsum. The crucial question for cement producers in West Africa is where is this gypsum coming from. Given that the Global Cement Directory 2018 places cement production capacity at just under 100Mt/yr in the region, this requires around just under 5Mt/yr of gypsum.

El Moustapha made out that there were no gypsum deposits in West Africa. This contradicts a study on Nigerian gypsum mining published in Global Gypsum Magazine in March 2016 estimated local reserves to be around 150Mt although to be fair to El Moustapha these appear to be relatively underused. This also doesn’t take into account sources of synthetic gypsum produced at coal-power plants although this is likely to be negligible at present.

Reserves in Mauritania appear to be much larger at 1.7Bnt. Instead, the problem here appears to be assisting the exploitation of mined gypsum by improving infrastructure and supply chain issues. El Moustapha’s company Samia reported that it exported 170,00t of gypsum to cement plants in West Africa, mainly via ship, but with a significant minority via truck overland to Mali. Another speaker at the conference from the Moroccan gypsum trader Cultura presented a snapshot of a more mature market with exports of 210,000t in 2017. However, similar issues with port infrastructure were also present. To this end the company was keenly looking forward to an upgrade project the Port of Safi due for commissioning in 2020 – 2022 that would allow larger ships to berth.

A market report on the gypsum and anhydrite market by Roskill in 2014 placed Egypt, Algeria and South Africa as Africa’s leading gypsum producers. In particular it singled out South Africa as the only sub-Saharan country producing more than 100,000t/yr of gypsum. In terms of usage of gypsum Roskill estimated that just over half of the world’s gypsum was used to make cement, followed by 38% for wallboard and plaster production and then 18% for agricultural usage. Although this compares to just over a quarter for cement production and most of the rest for wallboard production in the US, with its more developed wallboard market than the rest of the world, according to recent United States Geological Survey (USGS) data.

As the Global GypSupply Conference demonstrated plenty of raw gypsum is available around the world. However, since supply and price can vary considerably in the short term, cement producers are keen to secure steady sources. Developing gypsum sources in northern Africa are necessary to help build the West African cement industry, but the regions need to work together.

The 2nd Global GypSupply Conference will take place in spring 2020

Spain: Cementos Molins has benefited from good performance in Mexico, Argentina and Spain. Its sales revenue rose by 13% year-on-year to Euro779min 2017 from Euro691m in 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 15% to Euro192m from Euro168m. The cement producer attributed its increase in sales to higher prices and sales volumes.

Spain: Oficemen, the Spanish Cement Association, says that cement consumption grew by 11% year-on-year to 12.3Mt in 2017. The association expects it to rise by 12% to 13.7Mt in 2018. However, the cement consumed in 2017 is well below the high recorded in 2007. This has been due, in part, to a decrease in the amount of cement used in infrastructure projects. Cement used in civil works decreased by 75% to 5Mt in 2017 from 19Mt in 2008.

Exports of cement fell by 10% to below 9Mt, mainly due to a ‘loss of competiveness’ caused by growing local electricity prices. The association added that Spain is the largest exporter in the European Union and the eighth largest exporter of cement worldwide.

Ivory Coast: Jean-Claude Brou, the Minister of Industry and Mines, has inaugurated a new mill at LafargeHolcim Ivory Coast’s plant at Abidjan. The new mill has increased the unit’s production capacity to 2Mt/yr, according to the Agence Ivoirienne de Presse. LafargeHolcim Ivory Coast re-used a ball mill from a Spanish cement plant that was dismantled and shipped to Abidjan. The mill uses a 4.5MW motor and the cement producer says it is the largest horizontal ball mill in French-speaking West Africa. The project cost US$28.5m.

Spain: LafargeHolcim’s subsidiary Holcim España invested over Euro2m in its cement plant at Jerez during 2017. The work included environmental improvements, changes to the despatch areas and health and safety upgrades such as fire detection systems in its fuels storage zones. The plant also introduced a sulphate-resistant cement product (CEM IV/A (V) 42,5 R/SR) in May 2017 targeted for marine applications.

Spain: Cemex Spain’s Buñol cement plant has marked the 100th anniverary of the plant and the 25th anniversary of Cemex’s entry into the Spanish market. Pedro Palomino, the president of Cemex Spain, Juan Charquero, the plant manager, Juncal Carrascosa, the local mayor, and employees, customers and suppliers of the company atttended the event including the screening of a documentary about the cement industry, according to the Las Provincias newspaper.