UltraTech Cement Kotputli plant in Rajasthan
India: UltraTech Cement has commissioned 0.6Mt/yr of new slag grinding capacity at its Karur cement grinding plant in Tamil Nadu. The expansion follows the commissioning of a 2.7Mt/yr greenfield grinding unit at the site in 2024. The plant's total capacity is now 3.3Mt/yr. The company says that the additional capacity will it meet the rising demand for composite cement in South India and improve its blended cement ratio.
Türkiye: Cement producer Karcimsa Cement said that it will invest US$30m in a 1Mt/yr clinker and granulated slag grinding facility in Kayseri. Soner Ozbey, the chair of Karcimsa, said that the plant will produce ‘green’ cement with low carbon emissions, according to Medya Karabuk. He noted that Türkiye imposed restrictions on cement to expand the use of low-carbon cement in public procurement contracts from 2025. The unit will procure slag from local steel manufacturer Kardemir.
Karcimsa is a joint venture between Kardemir and concrete producer Beycim Beton Sanayi.
UK: The Port of Tilbury has ordered a LHM 550 mobile harbour crane from Liebherr to handle granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS). It is intended to unload slag from vessels into a hopper at the site and is scheduled to become operational in 2026. It will be the third LHM 550 at the port. The crane has been acquired to support the growing operations of the port, including Aggregate Industries’ new cement grinding and import terminal.
The crane arrived in mid-January 2025 fully assembled on the MV Meri heavy load vessel from Liebherr-MCCtec Rostock in Germany. The model is intended for high-volume cargo throughput. It has an outreach of 54m and 144t lifting capacity. It has been fitted with additional features to cope with GBFS. This includes an over-pressure system designed to ventilate the slewing platform of the crane to prevent product ingress into the machine rooms. A marine-standard paint finish has been applied to assist with corrosion control. The crane also uses a LieGEN energy recovery system and can operate on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuel.
Finland: Saint-Gobain has chosen Bravida as the electrical contractor for a slag processing plant it is building at Raahe in North Ostrobothnia. The project, located in the Port of Raahe, is scheduled to be completed during the first half of 2025.
The plant is designed to take steel slag supplied by SSAB and convert it into binders that can be used in Saint-Gobain products, such as its Weber brand mortars. SSAB says that the process is the first of its kind in the world and will enable 100% of the slag created in its steelmaking process to be recycled. Saint-Gobain and SSAB have been developing the process together for five years. The slag processing plant is scheduled for commissioning in 2025.
In a previous announcement, Gunnar Lauren, Senior R&D Manager at Saint-Gobain Finland, described the project. “When we studied SSAB’s manufacturing process, we noticed that the end step in the processing of special steel has similarities to the production of special cement. We can replace the slag created as a side stream of steel cleaning to replace, for example, the special cement used in Weber dry mortars.”
