India: Harsco Corporation has announced that it has begun a multi-year contract to provide onsite material processing services to India's largest stainless steel producer, Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL).

The project at JSL's all-new production facility in the growing steel-producing area of Jajpur, Odisha marks Harsco's fifth major steel mill services site in India and its first serving India's stainless sector. Harsco's services include specialised process technologies for recovering metal from stainless steel slag co-products.

"From 1Mt/yr of stainless steel production, we used to lose 5000 – 6000/t of metal embedded in slag," said JSL Unit Head, SK Agrawal. "With this new set-up, Harsco will handle all slag, treat it to recover metal and generate a metal-free slag." The metal content recovered by Harsco is available for reuse in the production of new steel, while Harsco continues to develop a number of commercial products from the residual slag material.

US: Essroc Italcementi Group has signed an agreement with Holcim to purchase its slag cement grinding facility in Camden, New Jeresy. As part of the transaction, Essroc will also obtain Holcim's cement terminal in Everett, Massachusetts. The acquisition will finalise when the pending Holcim and Lafarge merger completes later in 2015.

"The acquisition of the Camden slag grinding facility reiterates Essroc's commitment to the northeast market," said Francesco Carantani, Essroc's president and chief executive officer. "With the focus on sustainability and durability, there is a projected growth in the demand and usage of slag cement."

The Camden facility can produce upwards of 700,000t/yr of slag cement. Essroc currently produces slag cement at its Picton, Ontario, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, cement plants and at its slag grinding facility in Middlebranch, Ohio. With the addition of Camden, Essroc has a combined annual production capacity in excess of 1Mt/yr. Holcim's staff in Camden and Everett will join Essroc once the transaction completes.

India: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) is seeking partners to set up a joint venture 6Mt/yr cement plant in Vizag, Andhra Pradesh at a cost of US$472m. The government-run steel producer is currently in the process of floating a global tender inviting expressions of interest from interested parties.

RINL's interest in the project is to use fly ash and slag generated at its 2.9Mt/yr Visakhapatnam steel plant. Previously, RINL sought partners for the project in 2011 for a 3Mt/yr cement plant at a cost of around US$200m. RINL has since decided to increase the production capacity of the proposed project to over 6Mt/yr due the amount of fly ash and slag it produces. At present 1.2Mt/yr of slag is sold to local cement producers.

US: Lafarge and Holcim have announced further details on the package of assets that they propose to divest in the US as part of their planned merger to create LafargeHolcim. The divestments include:

- Lafarge's 1.1Mt/yr Davenport cement plant in Iowa and seven terminals along the Mississippi River. The units will be sold to Summit Materials for US$450m in cash plus Summit's Bettendorf, Iowa cement terminal;
- Holcim terminals in Michigan and Illinois;
- Holcim Skyway 600,000t/yr slag grinding station in Illinois;
- Holcim Camden 700,000t/yr slag grinding station in New Jersey, along with a terminal in Massachusetts.

The proposed divestments have been negotiated with the staff of the Federal Trade Commission and remain subject to review and approval by the commission. The divestments will be completed subject to acceptance by the commission and to the closing of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge.