Bangladesh: MI Cement Factory has ordered a slag grinding mill from Loesche for its Munshigonj cement plant. Blast furnace slag will be ground to a fineness of 4000cm²/g Blaine. A lead time of seven months after signing the contract is scheduled for the main components of the scope of supply. The gearbox is to be supplied to Bangladesh within nine months. Commissioning of the Loesche mill is scheduled for May 2017.

Ukraine: United Minerals Group (UMG) has signed a contract with Belgium company Sibelco to supply 45,000t of boiler slag from the ash dumps of DTEK’s thermal power plants to Sibelco’s division in the Netherlands. UMG has also commissioned slag-washing equipment to improve the quality of the product.

“Annually, Ukrainian thermal power plants generate up to 8Mt of ash and slag, with 90% of them it stored in ash dumps. Therefore we are interested in expanding markets for such waste. Our cooperation with such companies as Sibelco makes it possible to apply ash and slag to commercial ends,” said UMG Sales Director Sergey Melnichenko.

UMG started processing and selling ash and slag in 2013. In 2014 it launched a mill for production and processing of fly ash in Druzhkovka. In 2015, it sold 348,200t of ash and slag materials worth US$5m, including 31,500t exported abroad.

Indonesia: PT Krakatau Semen Indonesia has ordered a slag grinding mill from Loesche for its Cigading grinding plant in Cilegon, Banten. Krakatau Semen will use a Loesche mill with an LDC classifier to grind ground granulated blast furnace slag to a fineness of 4500cm²/g. The scope of supply for this contract also includes the raw material transport system, the mill dust extraction system, the reject system and the silo equipment. The mill is scheduled for operation by the first quarter of 2017.

Subsidiaries of Loesche are participating in the contract. Loesche ThermoProzesstechnik is supplying the grinding plant with a hot gas generator type LF-36L (fully inline) for the combustion of industrial diesel oil. Automation of the plant is supplied by Loesche Automatisierungstechnik. Loesche Indonesia will provide a service contract including personnel services. In addition, Loesche will monitor the local production as well as the assembly and commissioning.

PT Krakatau Semen Indonesia was founded in November 2013 as a state-run company. In a joint venture with PT Semen Indonesia, PT Krakatau Semen Indonesia is building its first plant of this type with a planned production of 0.75Mt/yr.

India: Tata Steel has launched a new ground granulated blast furnace slag product in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Around 40 potential customers from the construction, ready-mix concrete and engineering sectors attended the launch event. Speakers at the event included Rashid Merchant from RMC India Readymix and PN OJha from the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM). Other senior officials from Tata Steel were also in attendance.