Cement news highlights: 23 – 27 June

Business realignment

India’s Kesoram has announced plans to ‘explore options for reorganising and realigning its existing businesses’. Current business activities include tyres, rayon and cement. The company’s two cement plants have an installed capacity of 7.25 million tpa. Meanwhile, according to local press, Bamburi cement plans to manage its Kenyan and Ugandan operations separately, appointing a CEO and executive team for each country. The change is expected to allow for greater flexibility and market focus in each region.

Capacity expansion

A new line is expected to be inaugurated at Industria Venezolana de Cemento plant in San Sebastián de los Reyes,Venezuela, by the end of this year. This will be the cement plant’s third line, enabling it to double its production capacity to 5 million t. Over in Africa, two new plants are reportedly coming onstream in Ethiopia this October. Once the Ethio Cement and the Mugher plant begin operating, they are forecast to increase the country’s capacity to 15.7 million tpa.

UK building materials industry

DNV GL, along with Parsons Brinckerhoff, will work alongside the UK government to help it reach its target of reducing GHG emissions by 80% below base year by 2050. DNV GL will organise a series of workshops across eight industries, including cement, to develop Industrial Decarbonisation Roadmaps.

This week World Cement also looked at the UK government’s plans to provide a total of £30 million in funding for schemes that will help bridge the skills gap in engineering and provide further support for women in a bid to address gender imbalances. The funding includes £10 million for the ‘Developing Women Engineers’ scheme and another £10 million for the ‘Improving Engineering Careers’ initiative.

Elsewhere in the UK, a new scheme has been launched to recognise highly efficient quarry and mining equipment operators. Four operators from Cemex’s Dove Holes Quarry, Hope Construction Material’s Dowlow Works, Lafarge Tarmac’s Tunstead Quarry and Breedon Aggregates’ Cloud Hill Quarry have achieved the new gold standard accreditation. They were presented with the new gold cards at Hillhead 2014, which took place in Buxton this week.

Written by Louise Fordham

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/africa-middle-east/27062014/cement_news_highlights_23_27_june_14_438/