Displaying items by tag: Upgrade

Central America: Denmark’s FLSmidth says it is moving ahead with two contracts for cement plants worth over Euro250m following the receipt of the agreed downpayment. One contract is for a new cement plant and the other is for an extension to an existing plant.

The cement plant engineering company has not released many details on the projects. However, both plans will be located in Central America and will supply cement mainly to their local markets. The expected commissioning is within 24 to 36 months and once operational, the cement plants will have a capacity of 2000t/day and 3500t/day respectively.

More positive news emerged from the UK cement industry this week with the news that Cemex is planning to restart the second kiln at its South Ferriby plant later in 2018. This marks the full recovery of the plant after a disastrous flood in late 2013 and it is an all round good news story. Around the same time the local government in Scotland approved the planning application for an upgrade to Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant. That project involves installing a new cement grinding mill, a new cement storage silo and a rail loading facility.

Graph 1: Domestic cement, imported cement and other cementitious sales in the UK, 2001 - 2017. Source: Mineral Products Association.

The timing is interesting given the general uncertainty in the UK economy ahead of the UK exit from the European Union (EU). However, data from the Mineral Products Association (MPA) shows that total cementitious material sales (cement plus products made from fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS)) reached 15.3Mt in 2017 from a low of 10.3Mt in 2009 following the financial crash. This isn’t as high as the 15.8Mt figures recorded in 2007 but it does mark a recovery. This masks to an extent the change in the market since 2007. Cement sales in 2017 at 10.2Mt were still below a high of 11.9Mt in 2008. The recovery has been driven by higher imports, 1.9Mt in 2017, and higher use of fly ash and GGBS products, which reached 3.2Mt in 2017.

Cemex and Tarmac are not alone in announcing projects. HeidelbergCement’s local subsidiary Hanson is upgrading its Padeswood plant with a new Euro22m mill. Irish slag cement grinding company Ecocem opened its import terminal at Sheerness in mid-2017 and French grinding firm, Cem'In'Eu, has also expressed interest in building a plant, in this case in London.

As discussed earlier in the year, new upgrade projects in the UK appear to carry an element of risk given the unknown status of its departure from the EU. Supply chains may be affected, companies are delaying investment and the value of Pound Sterling is falling. The collapse of construction services company Carillion also had a knock-on effect in the industry and, with major work on the Crossrail infrastructure project finishing, the industry has no major infrastructure projects in support. A quarterly graph of UK construction industry output volume by Arcadis shows almost uniform growth since mid-2012 although this started to flatten in 2017. A badly-handled Brexit (UK exit from the EU) could undo this growth.

All of this presents a picture of risk-adverse capital projects in the UK. The MPA figures help to explain the focus on grinding at Padeswood and Dunbar. The market has changed since 2007, with a growing focus on imports and secondary cementitious materials. Hence spending money on equipment to process these inputs makes sense. The decision to increase production at South Ferriby meanwhile depends on reviving existing equipment. Regional cement sales figures to 2016 from the MPA appear to indicate static demand in counties close to the plant (Yorkshire and Humberside) but sales have increased in the East Midlands and the East of England.

Just compare the current UK approach to the situation in Egypt. This week the head of the cement division of the Chamber of Building Materials described the decision to build the Beni Suef cement plant to local media as “not based on precise information” and that it had harmed local production. In case you had forgotten, that plant is one of the biggest in the world with six lines. The commentator may well have been representing smaller local producers but opening a 12Mt/yr plant in Egypt in these turbulent economic times marks a different approach to risk than the modest plant upgrades in the UK. Let’s wait and see who has the best approach.

UK: The planning department of East Lothian Council in Scotland has granted planning permission to an upgrade of Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant. The work will include building a new cement grinding mill, a new cement storage silo and a rail loading facility. The work will also include a shed, belt conveyors pneumatic pipelines and associated works.

In its supporting statement the company said that the new cement mill was necessary to produce new grades of cement required for modern construction and the cement market. The proposed mill will replace two existing mills on the site and is intended to be more energy efficient and quieter than the existing mills. It added that the plant would benefits from rail sidings on both the south and north side of the East Coast Mainline railway line. At present trains are fed only on the south side using adjacent silos where train capacity is already fully used. Additional products are exported by road.

South Korea: Ssangyong Cement has launched what it says is the world’s largest waste heat recovery unit at its Donghae plant in Gangwon. The 43.5MWh unit had a budget of US$889m and was originally planned to 2016, according to the
Maeil Business Newspaper. 11 boilers plus turbines and cooling towers have been installed on six cement kilns at the site. The new system will also work in conjunction with an energy storage system (ESS) that was installed in April 2017.

Philippines: San Miguel Northern Cement has ordered two mills from Germany’s Loesche for a new 5000t/day production line at its Sison plant in Pangasinan. The scope of supply includes two complete grinding plants: a type LM 56.4 mill for cement raw material and a type LM 35.3 D for sub-bituminous coal.

Loesche will supply a majority of the electro-technical components for the line and the automation systems including its LM Master product. It will be responsible for the plant engineering and the supply of filters and blowers. The new line will use also A-Tec’s Hurriclon technology for de-dusting the raw mills.

Delivery of the order is scheduled for the start of 2019.

Gabon: Morocco’s Ciments de l’Afrique (CIMAF) says it plans to start a new production line at its Cimgabon integrated plant by November 2018. The measure has been announced to meet a sudden surge in demand, according to the L’union newspaper. Cement prices have reportedly nearly doubled in the high construction season.

The cement producer first announced the new clinker production line in mid-2017. It will increase the plant’s production capacity to 0.85Mt/yr from 0.5Mt/yr at present. In addition the company has launched a Euro10m project for an admixture unit for completion by mid-2019.

US: Illinois Cement has installed a Roll Gen System supplied by Martin Engineering at its La Salle plant in Illinois. The power station supplies energy to a remote conveyor location at the site. The patent-pending design uses the kinetic energy of the moving belt to generate enough electricity to drive an automated dust suppression system, a pneumatic belt cleaner tensioner and a series of air cannons, helping operators at the Illinois Cement Plant reduce dust and spillage, increase cargo flow efficiency and minimise labour costs for cleaning and maintenance.

The Martin Roll Gen System is designed to create a self-contained mini power station that allows operators to run electrical monitoring systems, safety devices and a variety of other components. Martin Engineering says that the device is considered a ‘significant’ step toward eliminating power production obstacles, as conveyors move into the next generation of ‘smart systems.’

“Running auxiliary power can be both complicated and costly, requiring expensive labour and oversized cables to accommodate the inevitable voltage drop over long runs, as well as transformers, conduit, junction boxes and other components,” said Andrew Timmerman, Product Development Engineer at Martin Engineering. “The entire project has been a success, particularly in how many man-hours we save in maintenance and upkeep. The tensioning system does a great job, and the Roll Gen puts out enough power that we’re considering adding an automated secondary cleaner and a vibrating dribble chute to capture even more carryback.”

Martin Engineering builds products for bulk materials handling. The company has it headquarters in Neponset, Illinois. It has offices in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, India and the UK.

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has allocated US$19.5m to spend on efficiency upgrades, including installing bag filters at its three plants. The project has started already with the commissioning of a new bag filter at its Kanthan plant for an investment of around US$5m. The upgrade to its Kanthan plant follows the installation of a vertical cement mill in 2016 at a cost of US$44m.

Pakisan: Fauji Cement has approved plans to set up a 12.5MW captive solar plant. The company operates a 3.4Mt/yr cement plant near to Attock in Punjab Province.

Nigeria: A group of investors from the US have visited Ibeto Cement’s Nigercem plant in Nkalagu. The visit was part of an assessment to prepare Ibeto Cement for a listing on a stock exchange in the US, according to the This Day newspaper. Cletus Madubugwu Ibeto, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Ibeto Group said that Chinese contractors were due to work on upgrading the plant to a production capacity of 6000t/day with a 45MW waste heat recovery unit. In May 2018 Beta Cement signed an investment deal with US-based private equity firm Milost Global for US$850m.