Global Cement News

UK/Ireland: Mannok has launched a comprehensive biodiversity report, the Natural Assets Action Plan, in partnership with the conservationist group Ulster Wildlife. The report examines the entirety of the company’s landholdings, which span 800ha on both sides of the EU/UK border. Habitats include grasslands, wetlands, woodlands, ponds and quarries. The report will provide a roadmap for the conservation, restoration and enhancement of each area of land to help Mannok to meet its sustainability targets. Key aims include increasing biodiversity awareness among Mannok staff, customers and local communities, improving biodiversity monitoring, maximising carbon absorption in soil and vegetation, rewilding the natural landscape and ensuring resilience to predicted climate change effects.

Chief executive officer Liam McCaffrey said “This report informs our understanding of the value of natural assets to the business and wider community and will help guide our long-term planning and strategic investment decisions in a way which aims to maintain and enhance those assets. Already it has started to change our perspectives of what was previously considered wasteland. Now, we can see opportunities for careful and considered restoration into valuable natural assets for the future. Additionally, the work involved in creating the plan has allowed us to focus on the whole area of carbon mitigation in ways which we would not have considered before. The way in which we are looking at carbon reduction through careful management of our land is a relatively novel concept in industry, but we now recognise it as a critical tool in the fight against climate change.”

He added “The report is full of very valuable recommendations on what we can practically do over the next three - five years and beyond to continue enhancing and restoring our land assets, and we are very much committed to delivering on this. We will commit resources, time, people and finances to develop the recommendations.”

India: The Telangana government says that it has failed to persuade the Indian government to reopen the mothballed Cement Corporation of India Adilabad cement plant. The Press Trust of India newspaper has reported that this is despite an offer by the state’s government to contribute to costs.

IT and Industries Minister Ramon Rao said that the Telangana government aims to create 50,000 new jobs and claimed that the state is the fourth largest contributor to India’s economy.

Azerbaijan: Holcim Azerbaijan recorded sales of US$59.2m in 2020, down by 16% year-on-year. Turan Information Agency News has reported that the producer’s net profit was US$24.5m, down by 23%. During the year, the company reduced its debt by 14% to US$67m from US$78m.

Spain: Cementos Cosmos plans to install a new screw compressor in the cement discharge system at its Ourense grinding plant in Galicia. The producer says that the new equipment will improve the energy efficiency of the process of discharging cement from railway tanks to storage silos. The cost of the work is Euro23,500, towards which Cementos Cosmos has received a Euro8140 grant from the European Reagional Development Fund (ERDF) under its A New Way to Build Europe programme.

Thailand: SCG International has chosen US-based Black & Veatch to help with the acceleration of its electric vehicle uptake across hundred of sites spanning its operations, including cement. The US Trade and Development Agency has given the group a grant towards three logistics fleet electrification pilot projects.

Parent company Siam Cement Group (SCG)’s managing director Abhijit Datta said "I would like to express our sincere gratitude to USTDA as well as Black & Veatch for their support, guidance and efforts that have made this project possible."