Displaying items by tag: concrete
Poor cement market slows CNBM financial results in 2023
03 April 2024China: Poor performance by CNBM’s Basic Building Materials division dragged down the group’s sales in 2023 despite positive performance by the group’s Engineering Technical Services and New Materials segments. Its revenue fell by 10% year-on-year to US$29.1bn in 2023 from US$32.3bn in 2022. Its profit after tax dropped by 33% to US$1.44bn from US$2.13bn. Sales volumes of cement and clinker decreased by 3% to 309Mt from 317Mt. Sales volumes of commercial concrete fell by 5% to 80.8Mm3 from 84.7Mm3.
Revenue for the Basic Building Materials division fell by 19% to US$16.4bn. The company blamed this on a fall in the price of cement, concrete and aggregates although an increase in sales volume of aggregates was noted. The group said that in 2023, the cement industry was characterised by ‘insufficient demand, weakening expectations and weakening off-peak season characteristics,’ coupled with and aggravating surplus and high costs.
Huaxin Cement fights off decline in cement market
03 April 2024China: Huaxin Cement grew its revenue and profit in 2023 by growing its concrete market domestically and increasing its international business. Its revenue rose by 11% year-on-year to US$4.67bn in 2023 from US$4.21bn in 2022. However its operating revenue from cement and clinker declined. The group’s net profit increased by 2% to US$382m from US$373m. Its cement sales volumes grew by 2% to 76.8Mt from 75.3Mt. Concrete sales volumes mounted by 66% to 27.3Mm3.
The share of its international business grew by 16% in 2023 from 13% in 2022. Notable acquisitions in 2023 included the purchases of Oman Cement and InterCement’s assets in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Decarbonising the cement sector in the US, March 2024
27 March 2024The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a US$1.6bn investment in the cement sector this week. The funding was part of a total of US$6bn for 33 projects in over 20 states to decarbonise energy-intensive industries also including chemicals and refining, iron and steel, aluminium and metals, food and beverages, glass, process heat applications and pulp and paper. The DOE was keen to link the money to “the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.” Politics is never far away it seems! The projects are part of the Industrial Demonstrations Program, managed by DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED).
Company | State | Funding | Scale | Method |
Heidelberg Materials US | Indiana | US$500m | Full | CCS |
National Cement | California | US$500m | Full | Alternative fuels, calcined clay, CCS |
Summit Materials | Georgia, Maryland, Texas | US$216m | Demonstration | Calcined clay |
Brimstone Energy | TBD | US$189m | Commercial | Raw material substitution |
Sublime Systems | Massachusetts | US$87m | Commercial | Raw material substitution |
Roanoke Cement | Virginia | US$62m | Demonstration | Calcined clay |
Table 1: Summary of US Department of Energy funding announced on March 2024 to decarbonise cement and concrete production
Table 1 above shows the main approaches each of the projects aim to use. The two most expensive ones involve carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at Heidelberg Materials US’ Mitchell cement plant in Indiana and National Cement’s Lebec plant in California respectively. In a complimentary press release Chris Ward, the CEO of Heidelberg Materials North America, said “This substantial federal funding investment will help create the first full-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage on a cement plant in the US.” The proposed CCS unit at the plant will capture around 2Mt/yr of CO2 from 2030. If Ward’s forecast is accurate (and no one beats them to it), then Heidelberg Materials will likely have set up the first full-scale CCS units at cement plants in both North America and Europe. This will be a significant achievement. The National Cement project, by contrast, is a mixed bag of approaches to decarbonising cement production that follows the multi-lever approach advocated for in many of the industry net-zero roadmaps. It intends to use agricultural by-products such as pistachio shells, as alternatives fuels to lower the fuel-based emissions, calcined clay to lower the clinker factor and CCS to capture the remaining 950,000t/yr of CO2 emissions.
The other projects either involve using calcined clay or substituting limestone with calcium silicate. The Summit Materials proposal is noteworthy because it aims to build four clay calcination units in locations in Maryland, Georgia and Texas. None of these appear to be near Summit’s (or Cementos Argos’) cement plants. This suggests that the company may be intending to use calcined clay in ready-mixed concrete production. The Roanoke Cement Company calcined clay project will be baseEuropead at its cement plant in Troutville, Virginia.
The remaining two grant recipients, Brimstone and Sublime Systems, will both test the companies’ different methods of manufacturing cement by using calcium silicate instead of limestone. Brimstone’s method produces ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). The company said in July 2023 that its OPC met the ASTM C150 standards. However, the company has released less information about its actual process. Sublime Systems’ uses an electrolysis approach to create its ASTM C1157-compliant cement. It calls this ‘ambient temperature electrochemical calcination.’
Investment on the same scale of the DOE has also been happening in Europe. In July 2023, for example, the European Commission announced an investment of Euro3.6bn in clean tech projects to be funded from the proceeds of the European Union emissions trading scheme (ETS). This was the third call for large-scale projects following previous announcements of recipients in 2021 and 2022. Euro1.6bn of the third call funding went towards cement and refining projects including five cement and lime projects in Belgium, Croatia, Germany and Greece. The money granted for each of these schemes was in the region of Euro115 - 235m.
Both the US and Europe are throwing serious finance at the cement industry to try and kickstart the various pathways towards net zero. They are also doing it in different ways, with the US aiming to boost its economy by onshoring sustainable industry, and Europe hoping to fund its approach via carbon taxation. Government-driven decarbonisation investment for cement in other large countries and regions around the world appears to be lagging behind the US and Europe but these may spring up as net zero targets are set, roadmaps drawn up and government policy formulated. These places could also benefit from watching what works and does not work elsewhere first. Back in the US and Europe the next tricky part of this process will be bridging the gap between government subsidy and commercial viability.
Sweden: Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a method to simplify the construction of textile-reinforced concrete structures, a move that is expected to lead to more environmentally friendly infrastructure like bridges, tunnels, and buildings. The new technique addresses the high carbon footprint of cement.
This innovation, involving carbon fibre textiles as a replacement for steel reinforcement, enables lighter structures with reduced cement usage, thereby lowering the overall carbon impact. Karin Lundgren, Professor of Concrete Structures at Chalmers Department of Architecture said "A great deal of the concrete we use today has the function to act as a protective layer to prevent the steel reinforcement from corroding. If we can use textile reinforcement instead, we can reduce cement consumption and also use less concrete, thus reducing the climate impact."
The research is detailed in a paper titled 'Textile reinforced concrete members subjected to tension, bending, and in-plane loads: Experimental study and numerical analyses', which was published in the Construction and Building Materials journal. The study, a collaborative effort between Chalmers University and Gdansk University of Technology in Poland, is supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Shree Cement launches Bangur Concrete with new RMC plant
22 March 2024India: Shree Cement has launched Bangur Concrete, inaugurating its first Greenfield Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) plant in Hyderabad. The new plant has a production capacity of 90m3/hr.
Earlier in March, Shree Cement acquired five operational plants from StarCrete in Mumbai, raising its combined RMC capacity to 512m3/hr. This move marks a significant step in the company's diversification and growth in the concrete segment.
Sustainable concrete project launched in Rome
21 March 2024Italy: Scientists Gregory Chass and Kun Tian have developed a sustainable concrete from wet waste materials through their company Mesoscale Engineering Halcyon. This 'green concrete' concept was conceived in Garbatella and will first be tested on the district's pavements. The concrete, made by combining and recycling industrial CO₂ emissions with brine from saltworks, is part of the Clean Energy Transition Partnership. It is also central to the BUCK$$$ project, led by Kun, focusing on carbon capture and utilisation. This project, with €2.54m in funding, involves 13 partners from seven countries.
This innovative concrete arises from 'mineralised CO₂', which is similar to mollusc shells made of calcium carbonate, as well as materials derived from saltwork brine, desalination, and industrial wastewater. Both currently underused products are expected to become crucial in the cement and concrete industries, particularly in Italy.
Holcim acquires Cand-Landi
20 March 2024Switzerland: After 128 years as a family-operated business in Grandson, Vaud, Cand-Landi will become a subsidiary of Holcim Group. This acquisition marks an expansion for Holcim in the areas of aggregate and concrete production, as well as landfill management.
The terms of the transaction, including the financial details, have not been disclosed. However, the Cand-Landi name will be kept after the acquisition.
India: Shree Cement has ventured into the ready-mix concrete (RMC) sector by acquiring five plants in Mumbai from StarCrete. The company disclosed the purchase on 12 March 2024, with the plants having a combined capacity of 422m3/hr. The deal, valued at US$4.04m, marks a strategic expansion for Shree Cement.
Neeraj Akhoury, Managing Director of Shree Cement, said “The strategic foray into the RMC segment is a step ahead in our vision to become a multi-product company centred around a core cement business. The RMC segment is expected to witness healthy growth, driven by government initiatives in large infrastructure projects and a booming housing construction sector.”
France: Representatives from the global cement and concrete industry will meet in Paris on 7- 8 March 2024 for the Global Buildings and Climate Forum. Industry leaders will seek to set out a framework for sustainable, decarbonised buildings.
Global Cement & Concrete Association CEO Thomas Guillot said “Our industry has been leading the way on decarbonisation through the implementation of our 2050 Net Zero Concrete Roadmap, and as our Roadmap sets out we are committed to fully decarbonising this essential material.”
Bruno Pillon, Chair the French cement association France Ciment, said “France and the whole world will still need to rely on cement and concrete for future infrastructure. But it’s really important that the cement and construction sectors, governments and suppliers all work together to achieve our net zero goal.”
UNACEM acquires Prefabricado Andinos outright
06 February 2024Chile: UNACEM has gained full ownership of precast concrete company Prefabricados Andinos. The group said that it completed the acquisition of the outstanding 50% stake in the company on 6 February 2024.