Displaying items by tag: Upgrade
Mexico/US: Cemex has entered into a global agreement with Petuum to implement its Industrial AI Autopilot software products for autonomous cement plant operations at its plants around the world. The products for cement plant operations are being deployed at select Cemex USA and Mexico plants and will continue to be rolled out in 2019.
"We expect our yield improvements and energy savings to be up to 7%, from the connected AI-based autopilots, which is game-changing for our industry,” said Rodrigo Quintero, Operations Digital Technologies Manager at Cemex.
Petuum says that its Industrial AI Autopilot suite of products can deliver real-time forecasts for key process variables, prescriptions for critical control variables and supervised autosteer aligned with business objectives for all cement plant operations including clinker cooler, preheater, rotary kiln, pyro-process, ball mill and vertical mill processes to achieve lowered energy consumption, optimised fuel mix and increased throughput while maintaining stable operation and product quality. The products are integrated with plant control systems and OSIsoft PI data infrastructure for scalable and standardised deployments across multiple lines and plants globally.
The joint Cemex and Petuum teams achieved a cruise-control-like supervised ‘autosteer mode,’ where the AI Autopilot could run operations with full engage-disengage control available to the operator.
To find out more about Pettum visit: https://petuum.com/
FCT updates on burner projects in US and beyond
20 March 2019World: FCT Combustion has released details on new burner projects it is involved with. Selected projects include a new contract in the US to convert both kilns to natural gas firing at Ash Grove Cement’s Louisville plant in Nebraska. The order includes Gyro-Therm MKII Burners, Natural Valve Trains and NFPA 86 BMS for both kilns.
Nova Cimangola in Angola has contracted FCT to convert its 5000t/day kiln to fuel oil firing. The order includes a multi fuel main burner, calciner burners, oil heating units, oil pumping and filtering units and control panels.
FCT also provided details about a low NOx kiln conversion for an undisclosed client. Other selected cement sector projects include the commissioning of Turbu-Flex burner systems for clinker kilns at Finnsementti’s Parainen and Lappeenranta plants in Finland. These are scheduled for commissioning in March 2019 and April 2019 respectively. Baumit’s Wopfing plant in Austria is due for a natural has lance for kiln preheating to be delivered later in March 2019.
It also plans to deliver a Turbu-Flex burner system for a clinker kiln to an undisclosed client in China later in March 2019. It is based on a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study undertaken by FCT is to allow for the firing of natural gas and to modernise the plant. Commissioning is scheduled for March 2019.
Libyan Cement Company to spend Euro200m on upgrade
19 March 2019Libya: The Libyan Cement Company plans to spend Euro200m on an upgrade to its plant in Benghazi. The project will increase the unit’s production capacity to 3Mt/yr from 2Mt/yr at present. Planning is at an advanced stage, with tenders already issued for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a mixture of new and upgraded facilities. The Central Bank of Libya, other banks and other investors will supply finance for the project.
The cement producer reopened its Benghazi plant in late February 2019. It has over 1000 employees with more openings to follow.
Philippines: Republic Cement plans to install bag filters on its clinker conveyors, cement mills and packaging lines at its Batangas and Teresa plants in 2019 to replace electrostatic precipitators. It follows the installation of kiln bag filters, according to the Business Mirror newspaper. Following the upgrade it reduced its dust emissions by 75% to 20mg/Nm3, below the national limit of 150mg/Nm3. The cement producer is also considering building concrete roads at its unit to further reduce dust emissions.
Zambezi Portland Cement spends Euro23m on plant upgrade
14 March 2019Zambia: Zambezi Portland Cement has spent Euro23m on an upgrade to its plant. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gomeli Litana said that the upgrade was necessary due to the high demand for cement, according to the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation. He added that the expansion was likely to reduce the cost of cement.
Eurocement orders three mills from Gebr. Pfeiffer
12 March 2019Uzbekistan: Russia’s Eurocement has ordered three mills from Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer for its Akhangarancement plant upgrade in Uzbekistan. The package includes an MVR 5000 R-4 for raw material grinding and two MVR 5000 C-4 for cement grinding. The MVR 5000 R-4, features a total drive power of 2500kW, will grind 500t/hr of cement raw material to a fineness of 12% R 90µm. The cement mills, each with an installed drive power of 4000kW, are designed to grind 200t/hr of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) at 3200 Blaine. No value for the order has been disclosed.
Fuchs opens upgrade to plant in Kaiserslautern
12 March 2019Germany: Fuchs Petrolub has officially opened an expansion to its plant in Kaiserslautern. A new automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) warehouse, two production halls and new office space for a total of Euro16m have been built on the premises of Fuchs Lubritech. The location, which mainly produces lubricants for special applications, now covers a total of 96,000m².
"The growth of the special application division and the concentration of diverse activities at this location made an expansion necessary. The extension is part of our global growth initiative, which is focused on capacity increase in line with advanced technology," said Stefan Fuchs, Chairman of the Board of Fuchs Petrolub.
Update on Argentina - 2019
06 March 2019Cementos Molins’ financial results took a tumble this week, in part due to the poorly performing Argentinian economy. A decrease in sales in Mexico was also to blame but rampant inflation in Argentina caused the Spanish cement producer problems.
Cementos Molins owns a 51% stake in Cementos Avellaneda, with Brazil’s Votorantim Cimentos owning the remainder. Molins took pains in its financial report to point out that the aggregate rate of inflation had been 109% in mid-2018. Accordingly, its income and earnings in 2018 would have been much better if the economy had been in a better state. As it was, its income fell by 24% year-on-year to Euro134m and its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 30% to Euro30.3m. Adjusted for negative inflationary effects these should have risen by 43% and 31% in 2018.
Graph 1: Construction activity in Argentina (year-on-year growth, %). Source: El Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos de la República Argentina (INDEC).
Graph 2: Monthly changes in cement despatches in Argentina (year-on-year growth, %). Source: Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP).
The other major local producers, Loma Negra and LafargeHolcim Argentina, are owned by Brazil’s InterCement and Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim respectively. Both companies are due to present their financial results later this week but the signs were not looking good earlier in the financial year. In its third quarter results Loma Negra said that the general economy was dragging on cement demand. Construction activity data from El Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos de la República Argentina (INDEC) showed that growth nosedived in mid-2018. This corresponds roughly with falling year-on-year cement despatches. Loma Negra noted that the depreciation of the Argentine Peso was hitting its bottom line and that its cement sales volumes dropped by 6.2% to 1.61Mt in the third quarter of 2018 from 1.72Mt in the same period in 2017. Despite this, its net revenue grew by 42.3% in the nine months to the end of September 2018.
Understandably, much of the talk in Loma Negra’s third quarter earnings call was about the effects of local currency depreciation with questions about how the expenditure for its L’Amalí plant expansion project was split between different currencies or how fuel costs were being affected. More revealing though was information about Loma Negra’s plans to reduce production capacity as national demand falls. Chief executive officer (CEO) Sergio Faifman said that the production cost at L’Amalí would be US$15/t less than the national average and that its Olavarría and Barker integrated plants would be first in line for production cuts given their closeness to L’Amalí.
Holcim Argentina reported ‘significant’ growth until May 2018 in its third quarter report. From here its sales fell and it expected zero growth for the year as a whole. It blamed this on the state of the general economy, the lower attractiveness of mortgages in the residential sector and problems with infrastructure project financing. Its sales volumes of cement rose by 6.4% year-on-year to 2.54Mt in the first nine months of 2018 from 2.39Mt in the same period in 2017. Holcim Argentina also has an upgrade project underway, at its Malagueño cement plant near Córdoba. Once completed by the end of 2019, the project is expected to increase the unit’s production capacity by 0.73Mt to over 3Mt/yr.
The problems facing the Argentine cement producers are clearly due to the poor general economy. The government took a US$56bn loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in mid-2018 to shore up the situation. Since then the Argentinean Peso seems to have stabilised against the US Dollar and inflation has settled. At this point the question is whether this is the bottom of the economic trough. The other thing to note is that Argentina has faced economic problems at the same time as Turkey. Although Turkey has a much bigger cement industry, both countries are prominent cement producers in their regions.
The sad thing though is that the local cement market was facing shortages in late 2017, producers were investing in new production capacity and Loma Negra launched an initial public offering (IPO). All of this growth in the cement industry has been jeopardised by the general economy. Let’s hope it rebounds soon.
Breedon Group results boosted by Lagan acquisition
06 March 2019UK: Breedon Group’s revenue grew by 32% year-on-year to Euro1bn in 2018 from Euro759m. Its profit rose by 13% to Euro75.2 from Euro66.3m. It sold 2Mt of cement and its ready-mixed concrete sales fell slightly to 3.2Mm3.
“We can be justifiably proud of our results. We outperformed the Great Britain market in sales volumes of all our key products, grew our revenues and underlying earning before interest and tax (EBIT), and once again generated strong cashflow, enabling us to pay down a material proportion of our post-Lagan debt by the year-end,” said executive chairman Peter Tom.
The building materials manufacturer said that the integration of Lagan Cement into the group enabled it to export cement from Kinnegad in Ireland to the UK. In early 2019 it intends to import cement from Kinnegad to a new terminal in Runcorn. Investments in the reporting year included an expansion of its transport fleet in the UK, a new mobile plant at its Hope quarry and the next stage of a four-year project to replace plant control systems at the Hope cement plant. Its single largest investment in 2019 will be the replacement of the raw mill drive at the Hope plant.
Breedon Group operates two cement plants, around 80 quarries, 40 asphalt plants, around 170 ready-mixed concrete and mortar plants, nine concrete and clay products plants, four contract surfacing businesses, six terminals and two slate production facilities. It employs nearly 3000 people and has nearly 900Mt of mineral reserves and resources.
US: Cemex USA has unveiled a new train at its Victorville cement plant in California. The train was built by Knoxville Locomotive Works it comes with an MTU-4000 Series engine. It will be used to transport clinker at the plant. The engine has been selected to meet US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resources Board Tier 4 Emissions requirements. A portion of the cost of the new train was covered by a federal grant secured with the assistance of the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District.