Global Cement News

Philippines: Cemex Philippines has committed up to US$57m in 2018 towards the construction a new production line at its Solid Cement plant in Antipolo, Rizal. The project will increase the plant’s production capacity to 3.4Mt/yr from 1.9Mt/yr, according to GMA News. The overall budget for the project is US$225m. Environmental approval for the new line was obtained from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in late 2017. The upgrade is scheduled to be operational by early 2020.

Chile: Cementos Bío Bío plans to start production at its new 0.15Mt/yr grinding plant at Arica in September 2018. The project has an investment of US$15m, according to the Economia y Negocios newspaper. The company wants the unit to reach its production capacity by 2021, with plans to subsequently double it to 0.3Mt/yr. The project is part of a US$150m investment that the cement producer is undertaking in the period to 2022.

Indonesia: Denmark’s FLSmidth is expected to secure a contract with Hongshi Holding Group to supply equipment for a new cement plant at Jember in East Java. Lu Jianlong, a manager at Hongshi's equipment supply department, told Inside International Industrials that the US$40m deal is due to be signed by the end of June 2018.

The project has a total investment of US$315m. Sinoma (Suzhou) Construction, a subsidiary of Sinoma International Engineering, is the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project. Atlas Copco and Kawasaki Heavy Industries will also be providing equipment for the plant. The project will include a 12MW waste heat power generation system.

Germany/China: Siemens has signed 10 agreements with Chinese companies, including China Resources Cement, to support the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Other companies it has struck deals with include China Gezhouba Group Corporation International Engineering, Guangdong Yuedian Group, China National Chemical Engineering Group, China Railway Construction and China Civil Engineering Construction.

"As a long-term and well-established partner of China and its industries, we support the call of the Belt and Road Initiative and take another solid step forward on a larger scale and a wider scope", said Joe Kaeser, President and chief executive officer (CEO) of Siemens, witnessing the signing taking place during the BRI Summit in Beijing. He added that the BRI was a ‘wise and powerful’ for force for accelerating infrastructure development already in participating countries.

Azerbaijan: Holcim Azerbaijan has launched its Spesial 400 Cement product. The general-purpose cement product is intended for mid-strength concrete applications. It follows the launch of the Optimal 300 product in 2017.