UK: Cookstown Cement has rebranded as Cemcor. The company formed in January 2022 following its acquisition of the 0.45Mt/yr Cookstown cement plant from Holcim in January 2022. It then announced investments of around Euro14m towards making environmental and process upgrades at the unit. The company also purchased a limestone quarry in Cookstown, a shale quarry in Dungannon and a terminal at Belfast Harbour.

Bangladesh: The Infrastructure Development Company (IDC) has agreed to loan Crown Cement US$25m to help it build a sixth plant. The new unit will use a vertical roller mill, according to the New Nation newspaper. The IDC is a government-owned non-banking financial organisation that finances projects in the infrastructure, renewable energy, and energy efficiency sectors.

Germany: The Catch4Climate project says it is ready to build an oxyfuel pilot unit at Schwenk Zement’s Mergelstetten plant following approval by the Stuttgart Regional Council. The project comprises Dyckerhoff, Heidelberg Materials, Schwenk Zement and Vicat, and It has set up a research company called CI4C to run it. Over Euro120m will be invested towards building a dedicated 450t/day production line to test the oxyfuel process. Jürgen Thormann, the Technical Managing Director of CI4C, said that this is the first time a so-called ‘pure’ oxyfuel process will be used for CO₂ capture. At a later stage in the project the consortium plans to use the captured CO₂ to produce so-called ‘reFuels’, climate-neutral synthetic fuels such as kerosene for aircraft, with the help of renewable electrical energy. Commissioning of the unit is scheduled for mid-2024.

Indonesia: Solusi Bangun Indonesia has ordered a Siwertell screw-type ship loader from Sweden-based Bruks Siwertell via contractor Hutama Karaya (Persero). The ship loader will be used at Solusi Bangun Indonesia’s Tuban terminal in Java. The HST 1000 1B-type ship loader has a continuous cement handling capacity of 1000t/hr and can load either open-hatched or conventional bulk carriers up to 50,000dwt. It will be assembled on site and is planned for delivery at the end of 2023.

Solusi Bangun Indonesia, a subsidiary of Semen Indonesia, has a cement production capacity of 15Mt/yr. It operates one cement plant on Sumatra and three on Java in Narogong, Cilacap and Tuban. The Tuban site is Solusi Bangun Indonesia’s first new terminal construction.