Displaying items by tag: blended cement

Sri Lanka: Lanwa Sanstha Cement has successfully commissioned its 2.8Mt/yr Hambantota grinding plant in the Mirijjawila Export Processing Zone. Daily News (Sri Lanka) has reported that the facility is equipped with two bridge ship unloaders and an automated stacker reclaimer yard. It will produce the company’s full range of cements, including ordinary Portland cement (OPC), Portland composite cement (PPC) and blended hydraulic cement (BHC) catering to the rising local demand from landmark projects including the Port City and the network of expressways.

US: Cement companies in the US produced 57.8Mt of clinker in the first nine months of 2021, in line with production in the corresponding period of 2020. Cement shipments including imports rose by 4.2% year-on-year to 79.9Mt from 76.7Mt, according to the United States Geological Service (USGS). The lead cement consuming states by total shipments were Texas, California and Florida. Texas received 11.4Mt of cement (14% of the national total), down by 8.5% from 12.4Mt, California received 8.19Mt (10%), up by 7.8% from 7.6Mt and Florida received 5.4Mt (6.8%), up by 5.6% from 5.11Mt.

Philippines: The Philippines Department of Trade and Industry has enacted a temporary duty on some imports of cement from Vietnam. The Manila Times newspaper has reported that the measure will be in force until April 2022 and only apply to ‘dumped’ cement. Importers will pay a duty of between US$1.02/t and US$10.50/t on ordinary Portland cement and between US$1.16/t and US$12.80/t on blended cement.

The measure follows a probe carried out on the basis of a petition by domestic cement producers APO Cement, Holcim Philippines, Republic Cement and Solid Cement. The probe found that the domestic cement industry had suffered a loss of market share and declining domestic sales between July 2019 and December 2020.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said "We do not anticipate that these duties will result in an increase in the retail price of cement, because its effect on landed cost is minimal.” He added “Any price increases in imported cement will be discouraged by competition from domestic cement producers. The provisional anti-dumping duties will be imposed only on specific Vietnamese exporters found to be dumping cement to the Philippines. Vietnamese exporters who are not dumping can continue to export cement without having to post the provisional anti-dumping cash bond.”

India: The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has certified the sustainability claims of Dalmia Cement’s portfolio of blended cements. The portfolio consists of composite cement, Portland pozzolan cement and Portland slag cement. The council employed a full-cycle assessment of the cements’ impacts.

Head of sales, marketing and logstics Sanjay Wali said “We see GreenPro’s accreditation as a milestone in our journey to becoming carbon-negative by 2040. This also reaffirms our blended cement products’ green supremacy, which is accelerating the global transition from a grey to green reality.”

US: LafargeHolcim US says that the integrated 2Mt/yr Midlothian plant in Texas will become the first cement plant in the country to fully convert to Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) production. The unit will switch to producing the company’s OneCem product, a blended cement manufactured with up to 15% of finely ground limestone. The move is intended to help LafargeHolcim US and its customers meet sustainable construction goals and lower carbon emissions.

“This is an important, but not unique, step for us. We were the first to produce OneCem, a PLC product, in one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, and fuel our industry’s step towards a zero carbon future,” said Patrick Cleary, senior vice president of sales, LafargeHolcim US Cement.

The company is promoting OneCem as an alternative to Ordinary Portland Cement in terms of concrete workability, set time, durability and strength development. It can be incorporated into a broad spectrum of applications that will support foundational structures. The product is available in the Western and Southern regions of the US and the company plans to ‘rapidly’ expand production.

Holcim has started to unify its low carbon cement product range this week with the launch of its ECOPlanet label globally. The products are already available in Germany, Romania, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, France and Italy. The plan is to extend this to 15 countries by the end of 2021 and then to double its ‘market presence’ by the end of 2022.

The headline news is that the range will include what Holcim says is the world’s first cement product with 20% recycled construction and demolition waste. This appears to be an improvement on the group’s Susteno cement products that use fine fractions from concrete and demolition waste. This product is currently sold in Switzerland where it is advertised as saving 10% of CO₂ emissions compared to a standard cement product. Both Holcim and HeidelbergCement already sell concrete products that use the coarse waste from building demolition. Other than this, Holcim says that the range will also include cements that contain calcined clay. In June 2021 subsidiary Lafarge France announced that it would produce a cement product under the ECOPlanet banner using kaolin clay with its proprietary ProximA Tech process at its integrated La Malle cement plant in Bouc-Bel-Air.

We will have to wait and see how far Holcim goes in standardisng the range between different countries. Yet, judging from what the countries that are already selling ECOPlanet are doing, it looks like it will be a variety of blended cements. At present, for example, Holcim Germany offers four products in the ECOPlanet range. These are all slag cements, with three having effective CO₂ reductions of up to 70% and the fourth, ECOPlanet Zero, reaching 100% through a carbon offsetting scheme in conjunction with MoorFutures. Holcim Italy also launched a product in the range called ECOPlanet Prime using calcined clay in June 2021.

Incidentally, LafargeHolcim US announced a research project this week with the US Army about using demolition waste. It’s going to start working with the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center and Geocycle to look at how construction and demolition materials from military installations can be used for energy recovery and mineral recycling. Group resources at Geocycle’s Holly Hill Research Center in South Carolina, US and Holcim’s Global Innovation Center in Lyon, France will be used in the scheme.

Other low carbon cement products are available of course. Holcim is far from alone in launching low CO₂ cement and concrete products. Yet the use of worldwide brand names is different. Cemex is doing something similar with the global rollout of its Vertua concrete products. It first launched Vertua in France in 2018 before going global in 2020. Holcim started to launch ECOPact Concrete in 2019. Now, Holcim has gone further by doing the same thing with cement. Given how localised cement and concrete products are, it will be instructive to see how global branding for low carbon cementitious products helps these companies. For instance, who is the target audience? It could be eco-minded self-build customers or project specifiers or government departments or industry lobbyists. Or perhaps it is simply another marketing channel to reinforce the sector’s sustainable offerings.

The other point worth considering is when will the multinational cement producers start selling sustainable cements and concretes in less rich parts of the world? While Holcim was playing with blended cements and marketing this week, Dangote Cement said that it was ready to start commissioning its new 6Mt/yr integrated plant at Okpella, Edo State in Nigeria. Another 5Mt/yr plant is also on the way in the country from Madugu Cement. It has just signed a contract for China-based Sinoma International Engineering Company to build it. When Holcim and the other cement companies start selling low carbon cements in places like Nigeria then the rise of these products will be complete.

For more information on low CO₂ cement production read our feature in the February 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Mexico: A team led by José Iván Escalante Garcíaat at the Saltillo unit of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (Cinvestav) is researching the use of volcanic ash in making blended cements and concrete. Volcanic ash is being considered to reduce the clinker factor of cement due to its abundance, low cost and its appropriate chemical composition. A clinker substitution factor of up to 80% has been achieved using volcanic ash. The research group has developed 15 alternatives to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) using waste or materials or minerals.

Philippines: Holcim Philippines has launched a new blended cement product called Solido. It is intended to produce concrete that is better than that made from Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in terms of durability and compressive strength. The product is also more environmentally friendly than OPC as it uses less clinker. The cement producer is also offering technical training, test and field support to potential users. It says it has launched the product to support the country’s construction boom.

India: Birla Corporation’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose due to increased sales of blended cement in the last quarter of 2018. Blended cements represented 89% of its total sales volumes compared to 85% in the same period in 2017.

The company’s net sales grew by 14.6% to US$653m in the nine months to the end of 2018 from US$569m in the same period in 2017. Its EBITDA rose by 17.1% to US$96.8m from US$82.7m. Its cement production increased by 10.5% to 9.86Mt from 8.92Mt and its cement sales increased by 9.9% to 9.79Mt from 8.92Mt. It said that better sales in key markets had offset raw material price rises such as petcoke, coal and diesel. It noted that the price of diesel had risen by over 20% in the reporting period although it had started to soften in the most recent quarter.

The cement producer held a ground breaking ceremony in late January 2019 for a new plant being built by its RCCPL subsidiary at Yavatmai district in Maharashtra. The 3.9Mt/yr unit has an investment of US$342m and it includes a 40MW captive power plant and a 10.6MW waste heat recovery (WHR) system. Commissioning is scheduled for the 2021 – 2022 financial year. The company is also planning to upgrade RCCPL’s plant at Kundanganj with 1.2Mt/yr of additional production capacity. Other new projects include a 12.25MW WHR system at Maihar that is expected to be commissioned in mid-2019. It is building solar power plants at Maihar, Chanderia and Satna with 11MW, 3.6MW and 1.2MW capacity respectively. Birla Corporation also said that restrictions on using explosives placed on limestone mining at Chanderia in Rajasthan had increased its costs.

Philippines: Holcim Philippines is promoting the use of its blended cement products by local contractors for use in road building on environmental and performance grounds. The initiative follows the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure program. In July 2018 the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) reported that 3945km of roads had been built by the current administration, with more projects underway until 2022.

Holcim Philippines Senior Vice President for Sales William Sumalinog said that DPWH has allowed the use of blended cement for roads since mid-2016 through Department Order 133, which amends building standards for concrete pavements that previously specified Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). OPC has a higher clinker factor and so releases more CO₂ during production. He added that blended cement could perform better in some cases compared to OPC as it can be customised to address the specific durability challenges present in sites where structures will be built.

Sumalinog said that, since the issuance of the directive, the company has been working with its business partners and regional DPWH offices to highlight the benefits of blended cement over OPC through its engagement programs such as Holcim Building Bridges.