Global Cement News

Australia: Boral has appointed Zlatko Todorcevski has been appointed its chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director with effect from 1 July 2020. Boral’s current CEO and managing director, Mike Kane, will retire in September 2020 allowing for a transition period.

Todorcevski has 30 years of experience in Australia and internationally in steel building products, oil and gas and logistics, working in finance, business planning and strategy roles, including as chief financial officer (CFO) of Brambles from 2012 to 2016 and Oil Search from 2009 to 2012. This followed a 23-year career at BHP in finance and business development roles across BHP’s steel building products and petroleum businesses, culminating in the role of CFO Energy at BHP based in the US.

Since March 2017, Todorcevski has been on the board of construction materials company, Adelaide Brighton, where he has served as chairman and since May 2019 as deputy chairman and Lead Independent Director. He has stepped down from the board of Adelaide Brighton with immediate effect. Todorcevski is also on the board of Coles Group, where he serves as chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee, and The Star Entertainment Group, where he is chair of the Audit Committee. He will leave these boards in an orderly manner over the coming months.

Born in Macedonia and raised in Australia, Todorcevski completed a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Wollongong in 1991 and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wollongong in 1994.

UK: Lafarge Cement, part of Aggregate Industries and LafargeHolcim, has appointed John Mulgrew as the new plant manager of its Cookstown integrated cement plant in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He succeeds Russell Larmour who is to retire after 40 years within the company. Mulgrew will report to Barry Hope, Head of Cement on the Executive Committee at Aggregate Industries.

Mulgrew joined the LafargeHolcim Group as a quality co-ordinator in 2001, holding almost 20 years of experience in the cement industry. He became production manager at the Cookstown plant in 2016. The company says that the plant achieved its best results to date in 2019 after being ranked in the top 10 of LafargeHolcim’s European cement plants when evaluated against industrial benchmarks.

Jason Bowman will succeed Mulgrew as the new production manager at the plant. He has been promoted from his current role as manufacturing manager at Cookstown.

Norway: Norcem, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement, has signed an agreement with Aker Solutions to order a CO₂ capture, liquification and intermediate storage plant at its integrated Brevik cement plant. The final decision for the project depends on funding from the Norwegian government, which is expected to approve the unit in its national budget for 2021.

The project will use Aker Solutions’ Advanced Carbon Capture (ACC) technology and its S26 amine solvent. Once complete the unit will capture 0.4Mt/yr of CO₂. This will be transported to the Northern Lights project for permanent storage offshore beneath the North Sea.

US: CalPortland has announced the launch of Advancement, a product line of cements containing sustainable materials and produced using renewable processes. These include the replacement of 15% of the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) clinker with blended limestone. The company currently offers Advancement Light for aesthetic design and Advancement High Sulphate for general use concrete applications and when high sulphate resistance is required, both of which have 10% lower embodied carbon than OPC. More products are planned to follow.

CalPortland president and chief executive officer (CEO) Allen Hamblen said, “Advancement is a line of products that can be combined with other concrete carbon reduction technologies to further enhance performance and increasingly reduce the embodied carbon of concrete.”

Philippines: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Holcim Philippines has said that digital innovations enabled it to continue serving its customer base throughout the coronavirus lockdown. The company said that utilisation of its customer service platform grew to 91% year-on-year in May 2020 from 56% in May 2019.

Through its information sharing platform E-Konekta, the company has hosted 40 events covering fields from Holcim Philippines’ corporate vision and health and safety to business networking. Holcim Philippines sales senior vice president William Sumalinog said, “Particularly in times of crisis, a customer’s interaction with a company can trigger an immediate and lingering effect on his or her sense of trust and loyalty. It is vital for us to keep our warm ties with customers so they continue to feel being part of the Holcim family.”