Brazil/US/Vietnam: FCT Combustion has released details on new burner projects it is involved with. Selected projects include the commissioning of Gyro-Therm burners for Kilns 1 and 2 for use with natural gas, coal, petcoke and solid alternative fuels at Lehigh Cement’s Evansville plant in Pennnsylvania in the US. The supply also included the burner management system, valve trains, fans and other accessories.

The company is also working on an upgrade to the hot gas generator at Votorantim Cimentos’ Vidal Ramos plant in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Also in this country it is supplying Turbu-Jet AF burners with blowers, ignition and flame detection systems to CSN Cimentos’ Arcos plant in Minas Gerais.

Finally, in Vietnam the burner supplier is to provide a Turbu-Jet AF burner firing low calorific value coal with fuel oil to Vinacomin’s Quan Trieu Cement plant.

Hungary: Germany’s IKN has provided information on its role with an environmental upgrade to Duna-Dráva Cement’s Vác plant. The Euro22m project was commissioned in April 2018. The 2400t/day clinker production line was modified by IKN to handle a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) substitution rate of up to 100% in the calciner. The two lower cyclone stages were replaced, a complete new preheater tower with the inline calciner was erected, a new bypass system and a new static inlet in the clinker cooler were installed. IKN says that it completed the project in just less than two years on an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) basis.

Denmark’s FLSmdith also worked on the project replacing the line’s bag filters with an electrostatic precipitator system. This part of the environmental upgrade cost Euro4.7m.

US: US Cement is in the process of obtaining a draft air permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to build a white cement plant in Brady, Texas. A public hearing on the application will be made in late June 2018. The subsidiary of Royal White Cement plans to build a single line 0.5Mt/yr white cement plant.

France: LafargeHolcim France has started the first phase of a Euro100m upgrade project its Martres-Tolosane cement plant. The first phase of civil engineering work has been awarded to Eiffage Génie Civil and it will be carried out until mid-2020. The stage of the project will build the foundations to support a new production line and its preheater tower. The upgrade will also enable the unit to increase its alternative fuel substitution rate to 80% from 30% at present.