Global Cement News

Mongolia: A president of the Mongolian Alt Corporation (MAK) has announced that the Khukh Tsav cement plant will be able to produce 2Mt/yr of cement from 2014. At a state visit to the site by the Minister and the state secretary of the Construction and Urban Development Ministry, Ts Bayarsaikhan and R Erdeneburen, B Nyamtaishir of MAK asked that a quota of foreign workers be allowed to work at the plant.

Engineering firm FLSmidth has been contracted to provide machinery for the project. Once operational PC42,5 PC52,5 and PC62,5 cement will be produced at the cement plant located in Dalanjargalan Sum, Dornogovi aimag in the south-east of the country.

Niger: Aliko Dangote, head of Dangote Cement, intends to build a US$350m cement plant with a production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr in Niger. Dangote made the comments to Reuters following a meeting with President Issoufou Mahamadou in Niamey on 16 October 2013. The project will create 6000 to 7000 jobs. The plant will include a captive power plant with surplus electricity to be sold to the local power grid.

Niger currently has one cement plant, Société Nigérienne de Cimenterie, with a production capacity of 0.04Mt/yr.

Venezuela: Cemento Andino plans to build a second production line taking its cement production capacity to 2Mt/yr from 0.7Mt/yr. People's Minister for Industries, Ricardo Menendez, made the announcement on a visit to the cement plant in the state of Trujillo. He added that Chinese contractors will be working on the project.

China: China's cement output has increased by 8.9% year-on-year to 1.75Bt for the first nine months of 2013, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics. Cement output in September 2013 rose by 6.4% year-on-year to 225Mt. In mid-October 2013 China's State Council issued guidelines to tackle production overcapacity in the cement and other industries.

Canada: Mantra Venture Group has completed the first phase of engineering for its 'Electro-Reduction of Carbon Dioxide' (ERC) pilot plant. BC Research (BCRI), the technology commercialisation arm of NORAM Engineering and Constructors, has delivered a comprehensive first phase report that details the estimated cost of the plant, which will capture waste carbon dioxide at the Lafarge cement plant in Richmond, British Colombia. The second phase of engineering, which will provide a 'ready-to-build' plant design, is set to begin soon.

So far this work has resulted in several process improvements, including the introduction of a product treatment stage that will deliver a highly concentrated liquid product. As this will be capable of reaching the levels at which the products are typically used in industry, Mantra expects to be able to sell product directly out of the pilot plant. Improved process control, instrumentation, and flow scheme will deliver a more robust demonstration and greatly facilitate the commercial scale-up of the process.

"This will be the very first plant to electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide in an industrial setting. I think people will be very excited when they see a valuable, salable liquid product coming out of the Lafarge flue gas stack," said Mantra's Chief Technology Officer Patrick Dodd.