Displaying items by tag: plant

Finland: Saint-Gobain and steel company SSAB are building a new slag processing plant in Raahe in North Ostrobothnia. When commissioned in 2025, the plant will convert SSAB’s steel slag into 90% reduced-CO₂ binders to replace cement in building materials. The partners aim to reduce the CO₂ emissions of Finnish building materials production by 200,000t/yr. Saint-Gobain first patent a slag-based binder design in 2022.

Saint-Gobain will invest €12m and SSAB €2m towards the cost of the plant, which will be 35% funded by Sustainable Growth Finland, under the NextGeneration EU initiative.

Netherlands: Ireland-based Ecocem has agreed a deal with Overslagbedrijf Moerdijk (OBM) to expand production and storage capacity at the company’s Moerdijk slag cement grinding plant. The project is intended to allow the unit to both produce and store the company’s advanced cement technology (ACT) product. It will quadruple the storage capacity for key materials at the site up to 40,000t. Ecocem has signed a long-term agreement to lease the site from OBM, who will manage the handling and storing materials on Ecocem’s behalf.

This expansion of the Moerdijk plant is part of Ecocem’s plans to expand its manufacturing and storage capacity to support the commercialisation of ACT across all its plants. It follows the expansion of its Dunkirk plant in France, which was announced in June 2023. These expansion plans will be supported by licencing and partnership strategies to accelerate availability and adoption of scalable low clinker cement at speed.

Conor O’Riain, Managing Director (Europe), at Ecocem, said: “We are increasing our capacity at all of our locations and our deal with OBM is a hugely important aspect of our expansion strategy. It will accelerate our ability to manufacture ACT our low clinker cement technology and make it available commercially by 2026. At the same time, we are actively pursuing licensing and partnership agreements in the construction industry to ensure the benefits of this technology are shared widely and we accelerate progress to Net Zero.”

In February 2024 Ecocem said that its ACT technology received an ETA (European Technical Assessment), which provides the technology with a route to full commercialisation by 2026.

Finland: Boliden says it has a developed a 95% reduced-CO₂ alternative cement production process based on the use of slag. Nordic Daily News has reported that the process has received verification from ‘established players in the cement industry.’ A preliminary study is underway, wherein Boliden will establish a 250,000t/yr production plant. Additionally, the process extracts usable metal from slag.

US: Building materials producer Edwin C. Levy has applied for a permit to build and operate its planned Delray slag cement grinding plant in Detroit, Michigan. The company says that the plant will produce green alternative cement using granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) supplied by local refinery operator Cleveland-Cliffs Steel.

Local press has reported that Edwin C. Levy director Reuben Maxbauer said “This facility is going to be something the community will be proud of.”

US: Heidelberg Materials North America and Levy Group of Companies signed a granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) supply contract on 9 August 2023. Under the contract, Levy Group of Companies will supply Heidelberg Materials North America with 400,000t/yr of GBFS for use in its slag cement production. Deliveries will begin in early 2024. Heidelberg Materials North America says that it has upgraded its Speed cement plant in Indiana to increase the efficiency with which it grinds GBFS. Following the inauguration of its nearby 2.4Mt/yr Mitchell cement plant in June 2023, Heidelberg Materials North America plans to transition the 1Mt/yr to 100% speciality and slag cement production. Levy Group of Companies will supply the GBFS from steel industry sites in the Midwest Region.

Heidelberg Materials Midwest US president Axel Conrads said “Our agreement with the Levy Group of Companies to secure a consistent supply of slag granules will help us accelerate the transition of the Speed plant to slag cement production and better meet the increasing demand for more sustainable cement products in the growing Midwest market.”

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has commissioned its H2 plant, a 1000t/day clinker-free cement plant, adjacent to its existing H1 clinker-free cement plant in Bournezeau, Pays de la Loire. L'Usine Nouvelle News has reported that the new plant took 24 months to build and cost Euro22m. The main part of the plant consists of a 70m tower, where activated clay, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and gypsum are mixed to produce the cement. It is installed with solar panels capable of supplying 50% of its energy consumption. The producer says that its clinker-free cement has over 90% lower CO2 emissions than cement produced with ordinary Portland cement (OPC). It aims to sell 24,000t of the product throughout 2023.

Sri Lanka: Insee Cement's Ruhunu cement plant in Galle has begun producing Portland composite cement (PCC) using slag and fly ash. Insee Cement first produced PPC at its Puttalam cement plant.

Insee Cement's head of products and solutions Moussa Baalbaki said "Insee Cement introduced PCC for the first time to the local market in 2021 as part of a two-pronged approach: to create value for our customers by augmenting the sustainability performance in their constructions, and also to steer Sri Lanka's construction industry towards ambitious, globally benchmarked sustainable goals." Baalbaki continued "We are truly encouraged by the growing demand across the local market for PCC, and trust our production expansion to Galle is testimony to our commitment towards sustainable production practices."

Australia: Hallett Group plans to establish a slag cement grinding plant in Port Augusta, South Australia. Magnet News has reported the cost of the project as US$83.9m, towards which the producer has received US$13.4m in government funding. The plant will produce cement using South Australian ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) from Nyrstar’s Port Pirie and Liberty Primary Steel’s Whyalla steel refineries and fly ash from the site of the former Port Augusta power plant. Its operations will be 100% renewably powered. An accompanying new distribution facility at Port Adelaide will ship the cement to markets. The project will create 50 new jobs.

When the Port Augusta grinding plant becomes operational in 2023, its products will reduce regional CO₂ emissions by 300,000t/yr, subsequently rising to 1Mt/yr, according to the company’s expansion plans.

Hallett Group chief executive officer Kane Salisbury said "We're talking about 1% of the entire country's 2030 [CO₂ reduction] commitment, delivered through this project." Salisbury added "We're looking at turning South Australia into a global leader in manufacturing green cement."

Netherlands: India-based Tata Steel has announced a planned total investment of Euro300m in environmental upgrades to its IJmuiden, Noord Holland plant. The upgrades include a Euro150m nitrous oxides control (DeNO_x) plant at its pellet plant and a Euro50m odour, particulate emissions reduction modernisation of a coke and gas plant and projects to dust from converter slag processing. The steel producer says that these measures, called Roadmap+ will help the foundry to ‘exceed environmental laws.’

European regional chief executive officer (CEO) Henrik Adam said, "Tata Steel is taking additional action to build on its Roadmap 2030 plan with the announcement today of Roadmap+, which will enhance the environment in and around the IJmuiden plant. We are absolutely committed to sustainability as a strategic priority across the company, of which these measures are the latest example.”

Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Belgorodsky Cement has announced the start of commercial production of a new CEM-III slag Portland cement. The company says that the cement is highly water and frost resistant and suitable for use in the construction of massive ground and underground structures. Belgorodsky Cement director general Eduard Androsov said, “We offer our customers an individual approach to solving construction problems and guarantee a stable supply of high quality products in the required volumes and within strictly defined deadlines.”