Displaying items by tag: Supplier

India: Several cement producers have responded to the coronavirus pandemic with plant closures. Reuters has reported that India Cements has temporarily closed all of its plants. JK Lakshmi Cement has suspended cement production at its 4.2Mt/yr integrated plant in Jaykaypuram, Rajasthan and at three grinding plants. JK Lakshmi subsidiary Udaipur Cement Works has shut its 1.6Mt/yr integrated Udaipur plant, also in Rajasthan.

Dalmia Bharat refractory production subsidiary Dalmia-OCL’s CEO Sameer Dagpaal told the Business Standard newspaper that he expected the virus’ impact on the company to be ‘relatively limited,’ with a slowdown in demand from the cement sector lasting at most ‘a couple of months.’ He noted that there had been ‘some minor supply-side disruptions relating to a shortage of raw materials from China.’

On 24 March 2020 the all-India total number of coronavirus cases crossed 500, with nine dead, according to Al Jazeera. 200 cases are in the western states of Maharashtra and Kerala.

World: Suppliers are taking all necessary measures to ensure the continued supply of equipment and services to cement industry customers the world over during the coronavirus crisis. US-based Webster and Germany-based Starlinger have both cut travel and limited face-to-face meetings to reduce the virus’ impact on the supply chain. Austria-based RHI Magnesita has established regional task forces consisting of members of various departments to monitor and react to the spread of coronavirus. FLSmidth, which is using its remote monitoring, maintenance and support software to avoid all but essential on-site work, said, “Cement is a vital, basic component in keeping societies functioning as normally as possible.”

US: Italy-based Buzzi-Unicem subsidiary Alamo Cement Company has signed a contract with Italy-based renewable power supply expert Renergetica for the construction of a solar power plant at its 1.1Mt/yr integrated Plant 1604 cement plant in San Antonio, Texas. Renewables Now News has reported that the plant will have a capacity of 10MW.

Germany: Hazemag has announced that Hazemag Systems will now market the entire product portfolio of Hazemag raw materials processing and mining equipment division Hazemag & EPR. The group says its ‘sales and process know-how’ will now be bundled at a single Düsseldorf location. Hazemag & EPR employs 400 people in serving industries including cement in 40 countries with plants and equipment for raw materials processing.

Japan: Equipment supplier Kawasaki has announced that its Vega class of boiler will be used in Taiheiyo Cement’s 8MW waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant at its 1.4Mt/yr integrated Saitama cement plant. Kawasaki says that the advantages of the Vega boiler are a compact design, a shorter installation time, a reduced induced draft (ID) fan power consumption and excellent dust-removal performance.

UK: Langley Holdings recorded a 42% year-on-year fall in profit in 2019 to Euro59.9m from Euro103m in 2018. There was a 3.3% decline in sales year-on-year to Euro820m from Euro848m. The company attributed its profit drop to its Marelli Motori acquisition and reorganisation of the Italy-based motor and generator producer. Langley Holdings Chairman Tony Langley said, “The group is now poised for the next phase of its development.”

Finland: Machinery manufacturer Metso Corporation has announced plans to consolidate its European warehouse operations, currently spread over Norway, Sweden, the UK, France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Russia, into a single location. Metso Corporation customer logistics senior vice president Jarkko Aro said the move ‘would also enable considerable savings in end-to-end freight costs and reduced CO2 emissions.’ 40 employees are potentially affected. Metso Corporation has not disclosed any locations under consideration for the facility.

Denmark: FLSmidth has announced details of the business improvement initiative it gave forewarning of in late 2019. The cement technology supplier is sacking 500 staff. Its most recent Annual Report stated that it had 11,368 staff at the end of 2018, meaning that around 4.4% of employees will lose their jobs. 80 of these redundancies will effect employees at its Copenhagen headquarters, with the remainder impacting personnel at operations across the globe. “Despite a healthy pipeline, this is an unfortunate yet necessary action given the weakening market for large capital investments in 2019 and our ongoing efforts to improve internal efficiency,” said FLSmidth CEO Thomas Schulz.

US: A new Martin Engineering conveyor belt cleaner will remove the need for customers to stock multiple blades for different belt widths, according to the manufacturer. Sliding blade holders lock on a guide rail, making blade length fully adjustable. Adjustments can be performed by a single worker in minutes. Martin Engineering conveyor products manager Dave Mueller said that this will deliver ‘the cleanest belt and the longest blade life – at the lowest cost.’

UAE: India-based JSW Cement has applied to borrow between US$50m and US$55m from two UAE-based banks to continue development on its planned 1Mt/yr integrated Fujairah plant, the capacity of which it plans to double to 2Mt/yr within a year of its scheduled January 2020 opening. Arabian Business has reported that the loan will bring the project’s total investment to US$110m with a 30:70 equity/debt ratio. The government has granted JSW Cement a 35-year quarry lease and a licence for the extraction of up to 6Mt/yr of limestone for use at the plant, which will be served by a Terex MPS 1200t/hr crushing plant.
550 local people directly or indirectly employed in cement production at Fujairah.