Global Cement News

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has called on the US Congress to reauthorise Federal legislation to build, maintain and improve the country’s water infrastructure. The US House of Representatives is considering two-year reauthorisation of the Water Resources Development Act of 2018, while the US Senate is considering companion legislation, America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018.

“America deserves safe, strong and resilient water infrastructure – our economy depends on it,” said PCA President and chief executive office (CEO) Michael Ireland. “Water infrastructure built with concrete is long-lived, has a low life-cycle cost and is resilient to man-made and natural disasters. We need this legislation to ensure our drinking water is safe, our waterways are navigable and secure and that we have water infrastructure capable of serving generations to come.”

The PCA supports reauthorisation of water infrastructure legislation to include: increased investment in waterway and flood control infrastructure; increased funding for water infrastructure construction programs; and to promote resilient construction techniques that use materials such as concrete.

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.