Displaying items by tag: Upgrade

Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s sales totalled US$1.2bn during the first nine months of the 2023 financial year, a rise of 28% year-on-year from US$941m during the corresponding period in the 2022 financial year. The Balochistan Times newspaper has reported that Lucky Cement attributed the growth to the commencement of operations of its new subsidiary, utilities provider Lucky Electric Power. The company increased its profit after tax by 83%, to US$172m.

Lucky Cement commissioned its Pezu cement plant’s new Line 2 at the end of the second quarter of the 2023 financial year. This increased the company’s installed production capacity by 26% to 15.3Mt/yr. The producer also inaugurated a new 34MW solar power plant, and completed negotiations for another, 25MW, solar power plant at its Karachi cement plant. The latest solar power plant is scheduled for commissioning later in 2023.

Belgium: France-based Air Liquide has signed a memorandum of understanding with Holcim to supply and operate a Cryocap Oxy carbon capture unit for the forthcoming upgrade to the Obourg cement plant. The intention is that 95% of the CO₂ generated from the new production line will be captured and then transported via the Antwerp@C export terminal for under-sea sequestration. Air Liquide and Holcim have co-applied for the European Innovation Fund to support the project.

Pascal Vinet, Senior Vice President at Air Liquide Group, said “The decarbonisation of the industry is at the heart of our Advance strategy. We are committed to accompany our customers through providing a wide range of innovative solutions. As an example, Air Liquide's proprietary Cryocap technology is particularly well suited to decarbonise the cement industry.”

US: Heidelberg Materials says that the first clinker has been produced on the new production line at its integrated Mitchell cement plant in Indiana. Construction work on the project started in 2019 and the majority of the work is now completed. The US$600m upgrade is expected to increase the production capacity at the unit to over 2.4Mt/yr. It will also create 50 new full-time jobs at the site, bringing the total to 170.

Chris Ward, president and chief executive officer of Heidelberg Materials North America, said “We are extremely pleased to have the new Mitchell kiln online and producing clinker.” He added “With the capabilities of the new facility, we will be able to supply our customers more efficiently, consistently and sustainably than ever before.”

North Korea: Upgrades to two cement plants have been reported by the Korean Central News Agency. The Sunchon cement plant near Pyongyang has installed a multi-channel pulverised-coal burner. The upgrade has allowed the unit to both save coal and increase cement production. The Chonnaeri cement plant in Hamgyongnam province has started operating a new clinker cooler. The companies supplying the new equipment to either plant have not been revealed.

Poland: Germany-based IKN says that erection works of a new IKN-supplied cooler are in progress at Lafarge Poland’s Małogoszcz cement plant. The Euro100m upgrade project is building a new 3700t/day clinker production line at the unit to replace the existing three lines. A new alternative fuels line will also be installed to reduce the plant’s CO₂ emissions by 20% and its energy consumption by 33%. China National Building Material (CNBM) subsidiary Nanjing Kisen International Engineering was previously reported as being the lead contractor on the project.

France: Ciments Calcia has announced an investment of Euro86m to further decarbonise cement production at its integrated Beaucaire plant. The subsidiary of Germany-based Heidelberg Materials has allocated a total of Euro600m towards reducing CO₂ emissions from all of its operations in the country in response to a government initiative, according to The Tribune newspaper.

The current funding follows a spend of just under Euro7m on upgrades at the site, including installing a new clinker cooler that will allow for greater recovery of waste heat, and the addition of a new computer control system. Following this work, the single production line plant was restarted in early April 2023.

The next stage of investment has started with a feasibility study. If successful, a tendering process could start in the second half of 2023 with work planned to start in 2025. The company intends to renovate the plant’s electricity network, modernise the production line with a preheater and a pre-crusher and make further changes to target an alternative fuels thermal substitution rate of 75%. A third stage, involving carbon capture and utilisation and/or storage, is tentatively planned to start in 2030.

Türkiye: Ahmet Eren, the chair of Eren Holding, says that its Medcem Çimento subsidiary will double its cement production capacity to 7Mt/yr in 2024. Eren made the comments in an interview amongst revealing investment plans, in other sectors, according to Bloomberg. Medcem Çimento selected Sintek Group to build a new 9000t/day production line at its integrated Mersin plant in late 2021. Germany-based Aumund was also reported in 2022 to be supplying equipment for the project.

India: UltraTech Cement has commissioned an upgrade to its grinding plant at Patliputra in Bihar. The 2.2Mt/yr upgrade brings the total capacity of the unit to 4.7Mt/yr. The cement producer will use the additional capacity to serve market demand in the east region of the country. It has a total national cement production capacity of 129Mt/yr.

Portugal: The first batch of clinker has been manufactured on the new upgraded production line at Secil’s Outão plant. Construction and start-up teams from ThyssenKrupp Polysius reached the milestone in mid-April 2023 after a heating period of 72 hours. Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions was appointed by Secil to work on the Clean Cement Line project in 2020. It said it was going to modify the existing rotary kiln and preheater tower, install a new calciner and add a new grate cooler. Once finished it will produce Portland limestone cement (PLC). It is scheduled for commissioning in mid-2023.

Italy-based CTP Team was contracted in mid-2020 to supply and install a 29MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit for the project. It planned to use an organic rankine cycle (ORC) unit using a 7.2MW turbine supplied by Turboden.

Italy-based Bedeschi also revealed in early April 2023 that it was in the cold commissioning phase for a new pipe conveyor at the plant to handle different kinds of alternative fuels. The conveyor has a diameter of 250mm and conveying length of 350m and will transport alternative fuels at a rate of 300m³/hr.

Mongolia: L Naranbaatar, the head of Khutul Cement and Lime, has responded to a strike at the company by outlining changes made since it was nationalised in 2022. Workers are protesting with demands to add wage incentives and to appoint managers from within the company, according to the UB Post newspaper. They have also alleged that the company is spending its budget illegally.

During a press conference Naranbaatar explained that the company produced 403,000t of cement in 2022, an increase from 2021. It reported a profit of US$3.3m in 2022, the first time it had made a profit in the last decade. However, the producer’s wage bill nearly doubled to just below US$6m in 2022. The company also spent US$2.25m on upgrades to the plant in 2022, the first such investment made in five years, compared to US$171,000 spent on maintenance in 2021.

Former economist L Naranbaatar was appointed as the head of Khutul Cement and Lime in March 2022. The company was transferred to the Development Bank of Mongolia when the heir of the previous owners refused to accept the inheritance.