Global Cement News

India: A worker has died after being electrocuted at the Ghanauli cement plant in Uttar Pradesh. Prem Pal, was working on a piece of equipment at the plant owned by Ambuja Cements, according to local police. Following the incident, other workers at the plant staged an immediate strike. They also demanded that US$37,500 be paid to Pal's family by way of compensation and stated their dissatisfaction with company vice president Rajesh Sondhi, who they claim has presided over a period of poor health and safety management at the plant.

In response, company civil engineer Ajay Vashisht said the machine on which Prem Pal had been working was 'not faulty.' He added that it had been sent for examination. It is not clear whether the company has acted or will act on the demands of the strikers.

Cambodia: Siam Cement Group (SCG) expects to invest US$200-300m of additional investment into Cambodia over the next five years, according to Aree Chavalitcheewingul, vice president for regional business of SCG Cement-Building Materials.

The five-year investment plan includes adding a third production line to its cement plant in Kampot, southern Cambodia, where SCG commenced the second production line in mid 2015. SCG also plans to double its network of ready-mix concrete plants in the country.

The group expects sales from its Cambodian operations to approach US$140m in 2015. Including its exports to Cambodia, which are expected to reach US$200, SCG's Cambodian revenues are targeted to total US$40m for the year. About 80 - 90% of SCG's Cambodian sales are derived from its cement sector.

"The growth is at a satisfactory rate of 5 - 10%," Aree said. "We have seen a lot of opportunities, especially this year, as cement demand has increased remarkably. There are many new residential and commercial projects coming up in Phnom Penh." Cambodia's GDP has expanded by about 7%/yr in the past few years.

SCG employs 31 international staff and 461 SCG staff in Cambodia. It is expanding rapidly in the ASEAN markets, with its first cement plant in Indonesia opening in the third quarter of 2015. It will start its first cement plant in Myanmar in 2016 and SCG will start a plant in Laos in 2017.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement has signed a contract with Siemens Pakistan to implement an SAP Enterprise System across its operations. The move will integrate all the departments, including finance, production and supply chain. Lucky Cement is the first Pakistani cement plant to implement the system.

"We have always focused on innovation and excellence as the building pillars of our continuous growth," said Executive Director, Noman Hasan. "Through SAP, we aim to drive progress through greater integration of our various locations, agility and enhanced efficiency of our operations and further efficiencies in our processes."

Indonesia: LafargeHolcim has completed its Tuban project in Indonesia with the official opening of the second kiln line at the cement plant. The new plant, part of LafargeHolcim's subsidiary Holcim Indonesia, will allow the group to tap into key developing markets in Indonesia's East Java Province. LafargeHolcim says that the plant's coastal location and jetty provides it with the flexibility to ship products to other important inter-island markets including Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

With the completion of the project, the construction of which was launched in 2011, LafargeHolcim says that it will be able to 'leverage its new footprint and asset base in Indonesia and in future thrive in a low investment environment.'

LafargeHolcim states that the Tuban facility is a state-of-the-art plant, which allows for the highly-efficient production of cement and better distribution. The plant has an annual cement capacity of 3.4Mt/yr and is located in Eastern Java around 200km from the city of Surabaya. The cement mill of the first line was put into commercial operation in December 2013 and the kiln followed in September 2014.

US: FLSmidth has secured an order for the engineering, supply and installation of a new CataMax catalytic solution for a US cement producer. The order includes a new filter installation with catalytic elements, ID fan, flue gas ducts and dust transport equipment.

The CataMax catalytic solution uses ceramic elements with an embedded catalyst. The porous elements not only remove dust particles from the flue gases, but the catalyst embedded also removes total hydrocarbons (THCs) and organic hazardous air pollutants (O-HAPs) in the flue gas. The CataMax catalytic solution is a patent-pending technology from FLSmidth that will help US cement producers to achieve compliance with stricter environmental regulations.

"We are already seeing an increased interest in this technology from other customers in the US as well as from customers in Europe and Asia, where similar legislative restrictions are also expected in the future," said Jacob Sondergaard, vice president of FLSmidth Airtech, part of FLSmidth's product companies division.