India: Dalmia Cement will set up a new cement plant in Madhya Pradesh with a capacity of 4Mt/yr, at a cost of US$475m. This plant will reportedly be the first in the country to operate entirely using renewable energy, according to Group Managing Director Punit Dalmia.

Canada: Climate technology company CarbonCure Technologies has announced that it has ‘saved’ over 500,000t of CO₂ across 7.5m truckloads of concrete. CarbonCure uses a technology that injects captured CO₂ into fresh concrete, which is mineralised and permanently stored, and which enables concrete producers to reduce cement usage while maintaining strength. The solution integrates into existing concrete plant operations, allowing for both environmental benefits via a reduced CO₂ footprint and cost savings through reduced cement consumption, according to the company. The company also claims that for every 1t of CO₂ that is mineralised in ready mix concrete, another 50t of CO₂ is ‘avoided’ by reducing emissions from cement adjustments.

CEO of CarbonCure Technologies Rob Niven said “This milestone reflects the strong sustainability leadership of CarbonCure’s innovative concrete producer partners. Together, we are proving that reducing the carbon footprint of concrete is not just a goal for the future — it can happen, and it is happening, today at scale.”

India: UltraTech Cement has entered a collaboration agreement with the Institute for Carbon Management (ICM) at the University of California (UCLA) to develop new technology that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cement production. The partnership will see the construction of a demonstration plant at one of UltraTech's integrated cement plants. Further details on the technology are available in Global Cement’s news story from 15 October 2024.

Mexico: Cruz Azul, owned by Cooperativa Cruz Azul, has reportedly incurred losses exceeding US$1.26bn due to the control of its cement and concrete plant in Tula, Hidalgo by a dissident group over the past four years, according to Noticias Financieras news. The company has expanded production capacity in four other plants and announced new investments in Campeche to mitigate production issues at the Tula plant. Legal director Rafael Anzures Ortiz said that the group is holding the facilities hostage, reportedly affecting over 4000 jobs. He said that the plant has the capacity to produce 35-40% of the company's total cement volumes, but no cement has been produced in the last four years, despite the salaries of more than 1000 workers at the plant being guaranteed.

Rafael Anzures Ortiz said "We have been very emphatic in requesting the state government to go to court and to seek compliance with the law so that this plant can start operating again and this entire economy can be reactivated."

US: California-based climate technology startup Furno Materials has been awarded US$20m by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for a new ‘low-carbon’ cement production facility in Chicago. The facility will use recycled industrial byproducts to produce cement, with the aim to reduce carbon emissions ‘significantly’, according to the Chicago Business Journal. This investment is part of a broader DOE initiative that is funding 14 projects totalling US$428m, in order to address clean-energy supply chains and boost US manufacturing. The project is expected to create 80 jobs.

France: Holcim has been awarded a new grant from the EU Innovation Fund for its ‘CarboClearTech’ carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project in Martres-Tolosane, France. This support marks Holcim's seventh large-scale EU-backed CCUS project. The value of the funding was not disclosed by the company.

Lithuania: Recycling company Ekobāze is set to construct a plastic byproducts and solid recovered fuel (SRF) processing complex in the Akmenė Free Economic Zone. The project is valued at about €12m and received €10m in EU financing, according to BNS News. It will create 60 new jobs. The complex will supply SRF to Akmenės Cementas, the sole cement producer in Lithuania, utilising post-consumer plastic unsuitable for recycling in its production processes. Ekobāze will process other plastic into pellets. Construction will begin at the end of 2025, with production starting in early 2027.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement has commissioned a 28.8MW captive wind power project at its Karachi plant, which started operations on 22 October 2024. This reportedly makes Lucky Cement the first company in Pakistan to launch a renewable energy project of this scale, according to The News International. Lucky Cement now generates 55% of its total power consumption from renewable sources.

Spain: Cement consumption in Catalonia slightly decreased by 0.6% year-on-year in September 2024, totalling 151,157t, according to the employers’ association Ciment Català. The association has confirmed stabilisation of the cement market, following a decline that started in November 2022. In the first nine months of 2024, consumption stood at 2.1Mt, down by 4.3% from the same period in 2023. However, cement production saw a 15% increase in September 2024, to 271,718t. Production in 2024 dropped slightly by 0.3% year-on-year to 3.31Mt. Exports of cement and clinker in September 2024 remained stable, with a marginal increase of 0.3%, amounting to 144,601t. In 2024, exports declined by 25% to 1.5Mt.

Ciment Català said that the industry is shifting towards decarbonisation and that "industrial projects associated with sustainability involve extraordinarily high investments", according to Via Empresa News.

Starlinger revealed this week that it had taken on copycats in China and won. The packaging machine manufacturer said that it had sued a number of China-based machine manufacturers and their customers, packaging producers, based on infringement of several of its patents. An out-of-court settlement was eventually reached with the case going before both a civil court and a Chinese court specialised in intellectual property. Naturally, Austria-based Starlinger did not say what the settlement involved other than stating that the proceedings had been “...settled with strict obligations for the machine manufacturers.”

It’s unclear how directly the case affected the cement sector. Starlinger did say that the case involved a replica of a proprietary sack conversion line for producing woven plastic sacks. Packaging producers, often in Asia, use Starlinger’s conversion lines to manufacture proprietary block bottom valve sacks made of polypropylene tape fabric for the cement and construction industries, although they are also used for other dry bulk goods such as rice, flour or chemical granulates.

Starlinger’s reasons for going public are interesting given that most companies steer well clear of discussing legal matters openly. In the accompanying press statement Harald Neumüller, the chief strategy officer of Starlinger, used the disclosure to promote his products by saying “Only the best are copied, as the saying goes.” He then went on to underline the company’s strengths in research and development. Yet he also admitted that this was “...little consolation if it has economic consequences for innovative machine manufacturers like us.”

Firstly it should be noted that battles over patents and ideas happen everywhere from time to time. Discussing international copyright theft has become politicised because it plays into the geopolitical rivalry between the US, Europe and China. One US-government commissioned estimate in 2017 reckoned that the US economy was losing US$225 - 600bn/yr due to counterfeit goods, pirated software and theft of trade secrets. This report has been criticised but it gives one an idea of the scale of the concern. However, there are also plenty of prognosticators in the western media who have spent the last two decades warning of a hard landing in the Chinese economy that hasn’t happened.

Bringing this discussion back to cement, following the collapse of the real estate market since 2021, cement output has fallen. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China shows that output decreased by 11% year-on-year to 1.33Bnt in the nine months from January to September 2024. This appears to be following a similar decline in local real estate investment. The market is still correcting itself and the government is making gradual changes but there has been no apparent cataclysm so far. China-based equipment suppliers don’t appear to have suffered to the same degree due to their foreign orders.

The standard western narrative is that when European or American companies sold their equipment in China from the 1990s onwards they contended with a rocketing economy and lax intellectual property (IP) enforcement. Such an environment reputedly made it easy for some local companies to copy machinery and sell it more cheaply. At the same time China’s industries legitimately surpassed their competitors leading to criticism about how they did it. Publicly available evidence of this behaviour in the cement sector is limited. One of the few includes action by Haver & Boecker, another packaging machine manufacturer, in the late 2010s. However, anecdotally, the view that IP was stolen in China is prevalent in the west whether it is true or false. No doubt readers will have their own experiences and opinions. None of which would be publishable. The issue has been superseded though as China’s cement sector has become the largest in the world by a considerable margin. The biggest manufacturers of cement plants in the world are now Chinese companies too. They either use their own equipment or buy in western kit depending on what the customer wants. They also own a number of their overseas competitors and more potential acquisitions look likely.

All of this is what makes Starlinger’s admission unusual. It has taken a stand and it may have paid off. At the very least the equipment supplier is wringing publicity out of the affair regardless of how big - or small - the settlement may have been. Others may follow.