cementinsightsNO.4

The world’s cement industry will spend over $10.5 billion for fluid/gas treatment and control in 2012. The bulk of the expenditures will be to purchase and maintain air pollution control equipment. This is the conclusion reached by the McIlvaine Company by extracting forecasts from a number of its continually updated reports.

Cement Industry Fluid/Gas Treatment and Control Purchases 2012 ($ Millions)
Technology	Hardware	Parts, Service Consumables	Total
Fabric Filter	2000	2800	4800
Precipitators	400	1500	1900
Scrubbers	500	300	800
DeNOx	150	75	225
Air Monitoring	100	1,000	1100
Liquid Flow Control and Treatment	50	30	80
Air/Gas Movement/Control	900	700	1600
Total	4100	6405	10505

The purchases are generated both by industry growth and tougher environmental restrictions. Much of the growth will be in developing countries. China produced 1.87 billion metric tons of cement in 2010, up 15.5 percent compared from 2009. In 2011 production is pegged at over 2 billion metric tons. This contrasts to the slow market in the U.S. The Portland Cement Association (PCA) published a U.S. cement consumption growth forecast increasing 0.2 percent for 2011, 0.4 percent in 2012 with a significant 16.4 percent increase in 2013.

New regulations relative to toxic air emissions in the U.S. will force plants to install scrubbers and other equipment in the next several years. Cement plants rank high on the list of NO_x emitters. It is not surprising that regulations are tightening in Europe and the U.S. as well as in some other countries.

Air monitoring requirements are also tightening. U.S. cement plants will be forced to install continuous emission monitors to measure mercury and also particulate mass. Maintenance and operation of the continuous emissions monitoring systems is far greater than with the simple opacity monitors.

The biggest expenditures will be for new fabric filters and for the bags and other consumables associated with them. Over the last two decades fabric filters have slowly replaced precipitators for capture of the fumes from the cement kilns. In addition, they are used for capturing dust emissions at all the transfer points. There are still a number of older precipitators in operation. Replacement of rappers, collection plates and dust conveying components will be significant.

There is relatively little liquid treatment and flow control equipment being purchased by cement plants. In the 1970s most of the cement plants used a wet process but have converted over to the dry technology today. Some liquid fuels are burned. This requires some pumps and valves. Other flow control applications include lubrication and hydraulic control.

The air and gas movement and control is significant. There are fans and dampers associated with combustion and with the exhaust gases from the kilns and transfer points. The cement process is made more complex by the recirculation of the clinker kiln dust. Additional fans and air movement equipment are required for the various pneumatic conveying systems.

U.S. Cement Market Still Slow

Despite recovery momentum in late 2010, the U.S. economy is again in a slowdown, according to the most recent economic forecast by the Portland Cement Association (PCA), which says that the slowdown will weaken construction activity and restrain gains in cement consumption until 2013.

The PCA downgraded its cement consumption growth forecast to 0.2 percent for 2011, 0.4 percent in 2012 with a significant 16.4 percent increase in 2013. According to the report, uncertainty regarding highway spending legislation and government policy related to the debt crisis will cause a negative drag on construction activity for the next few years.

"Our previous forecast had assumed the new highway bill would be 20 percent higher than existing levels but we now believe the funding will remain at current levels," said PCA chief economist Edward Sullivan. A lack of highway funding and reduced consumer, business and bank confidence due to the debt crisis will all slow down construction recovery."

According to Sullivan, economic recovery from the recession will be led by a strengthening of confidence in these areas. Without a sustained improvement, private sector fundamentals such as job creation, investment and ease in lending standards will not be released in full force and commit the economy to a path of improvement.

PCA Combating Environmental Regulations

Here is the Portland Cement Association advisory relative to congressional legislation to ease the impact of proposed rules.

“On Wednesday, October 5th, the House of Representatives will consider the H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011.

Since the fall of 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued three new rules targeting cement makers that impose stringent emission requirements (the NESHAP and CISWI rules) and modify regulation of solid waste (RCRA rule). These three rules could result in the loss of 3000 to 4000 jobs in the cement industry.

If implemented, the EPA’s National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) rule would impose $3.4 billion in new costs on the U.S. cement industry, which is already suffering from record low domestic demand due to harsh economic conditions. The Portland Cement Association (PCA) conducted a study showing that the final rule jeopardizes the viability of 18 of the approximately 100 U.S. cement plants. It also places at risk 1,800 high-wage jobs in the cement industry, another 9,000 jobs in construction and related industries, and will increase material costs for cement products in housing and infrastructure by as much as 15 percent. The Commercial/Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators (CISWI) standard could impose an additional $2 billion in compliance costs on cement makers.

Now that we have a comprehensive legislative vehicle that addresses these EPA rules, please tell Congress to pass H.R. 2681.

To learn more about how to urge congressional action, please contact Bryan Brendle at (202) 408-9494.

FLSmidth Has Contracts in Middle East and Russia

FLSmidth has received four contracts, each worth approximately €40 million (approximately DKK 300m) from a company in the Middle East for engineering services and minerals equipment.

Each order entails the supply of one SAG mill, two ball mills, with associated pebble crusher, screens, pumps and cyclones along with engineering services and auxiliary equipment.

FLSmidth has received a contract worth approximately €150 million (approximately DKK 1.1bn) from the Russian company Kaluga Cement Plant LLC for the supply of a complete cement plant. The plant will be located in the Kaluga province some 300 km southwest of the Russian capital of Moscow.

The order underlines FLSmidth's ability to accommodate the customer's need for one source supply and includes provision of equipment, engineering, supervision, training, transportation and spare parts - all supplied by FLSmidth.

The new production line will have a kiln capacity of 8,500 tonnes per day equivalent to approximately 3 million tonnes per year making it the biggest new kiln in Europe. The equipment supplies include three OK vertical roller mills for clinker and slag grinding as well as ABON primary crushers. The OK mills will be the first sold to the Russian market. A complete electrical, automation and control equipment package will also be provided by FLSmidth for the new production line.

"This order was won through close collaboration with the customer to find solutions that benefit both parties. FLSmidth has a long standing local presence in Russia and the order from Kaluga, which was won against keen competition, underlines our continued strength as a preferred supplier to this important market.”

FLSmidth has received an order from the Nigerian company, BUA International Limited, to supply a complete 6,000 tonnes per day cement plant in Nigeria. The plant will be located some 100 km from Benin City which is the capital of the Edo State in southern Nigeria. The order is a complete solution including equipment supplies, engineering, supervision and training. The scope of equipment supplies includes EV crushers for raw material preparation, an ATOX 50 mill for raw meal grinding, a pyro system consisting of a five-stage In-Line Calciner preheater, a two-base kiln, UMS mills for cement grinding and four packing plants as well as FLSmidth's latest design Cross-Bar 16x50 clinker cooler.

KHD has Cement Plant Orders in Brazil and Turkey

KHD has received an order from Cimentos Liz S.A. in Brazil for the equipment supply, engineering and site advisory and commissioning services, for a new 5,000 t/d production line.

(KCS) awarded KHD Humboldt Wedag the contract to engineer and deliver equipment for its second cement production line with a capacity of 4,500 t/d clinker, and the contract for increasing its cement grinding capacity by installing a COMFLEX^® grinding system. The new production line will be built directly next to Line I, also delivered by KHD, which started production in 2009 near the city of Kahramanmaras in southeastern Turkey.

Signing the contract with KHD Humboldt Wedag for delivering clinker production Line I in May 2006 allowed KIPAS Holding and its subsidiary Kahramanmaras Cement to meet the requirements for entering the Turkish cement industry as a producer. Pursuing a wide spectrum of activities in many fields such as textiles, energy, agriculture, etc., KIPAS Holding is among the most significant companies in this region of the country. After kiln Line I in the Kahramanmaras cement plant had logged three years of successful operation, the customer's recent decision to place another order with KHD proves the company's trust in KHD and its advanced technologies.

The scope of KHD´s delivery and services includes the engineering and delivery of mechanical and electrical equipment as well as advisory supervision of erection and commissioning, including training, for the new kiln line with a capacity of 4,500 t/d and for the clinker grinding system. Its capacity will increase from 100 to 200 t of cement per hour at a fineness of 3,600 cm2/g on the Blaine scale.

The core equipment specified in this contract to be designed and delivered by KHD includes:

• PYROCLON^®R calciner equipped with PYROTOP^®compact mixing chamber, tertiary air duct with dust settling chamber; combustion chamber with HCB^® Humboldt chamber burner

• SCANEX^® kiln diagnostic system and ROMIX^®-S clinker sampling system with sampling and preparation equipment, X-ray laboratory and process computer system Clinker Grinding System/COMFLEX^® SC 16-3250

• Roller Press RPS 16-170/180 with ROLCOX^® system for control and monitoring

KHD received the order for engineering, equipment supply, supervision of erection, and commissioning, including on shore training, for Askale Cimento´s new 4,000 t/d pyro-processing system at Gümüshane cement plant, near the town Gümüshane in the North-East Black Sea region of Turkey.

Under a contract with Sintek Madencilik Ltd. as general contractor, KHD´s scope of supply includes various auxiliary equipment, automation and instrumentation, as well as core components with KHD design, including:

• 5-stage Humboldt preheater with PYROCLON^®R calciner, equipped with PYROTOP^® compact mixing chamber and tertiary air duct with dust settling chamber, and PYROBOX calciner firing system for coal dust.

• PYROFLOOR^® clinker cooler equipped with a hammer-type clinker crusher and controlled by PFC Control System.

• New 3,500 t/d kiln line II at Erzurum cement plant in East Anatolian region of Turkey, ordered in 2006 and in operation since end of 2007.

• New 3,500 t/d kiln line at Van cement plant in East Anatolian region of Turkey, ordered in January 2011, with similar design at Erzurum kiln line II.

Commissioning of the plant, which will be erected near the existing Gümüshane cement grinding unit, which has a capacity of 100 t/h, is scheduled for the beginning of 2013.

First Low Dust SCR Plant for the Cement Industry Successful in Operation by GEA Bischoff

At the end of March 2011 the new DeNOx plant was put successfully into operation at the German cement manufacturer Südbayer Portland-Zementwerk (SPZ) in Rohrdorf.

The new selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system converts nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and ammonium hydroxide from the kiln exhaust gas into atmospheric nitrogen and water, thus reducing emissions considerably to meet not only current but also future emission.

A catalytic reduction of the NO_x output requires the operation temperature to be more than 250°C. To achieve this, the kiln exhaust gas is heated up in heat exchangers supplied by Ecoflex, another member of the GEA Group.

The low dust DeNOx plant is the first of its kind in operation at a cement plant worldwide. Advantages of this arrangement after the dusting stage are lower operational cost and a longer lifetime of the catalyst.

Anhui Cement Purchasing Majority Interest in Guangxi Sihe

Anhui Conch Cement plans to purchase an 80 percent stake in Guangxi Sihe Industry and Trade and stakes in several subsidiaries of Shaanxi Zhongxi Cement Group for a total of 600 million yuan.

Sihe Industry owns a new dry-process cement clinker production line with capacity of 4,000 tons per day, a cement grinding system with capacity of 2.4 million tons per year, and 9MW of waste heat power generation units.

Zhongxi Cement's subsidiaries possess clinker capacity of 7.2 million tons per year, and cement production capacity of nine million tons per year.

Taiwan Cement Group recently announced it has set aside 1.6 billion renminbi, or NT$7.2 billion, to acquire Kehua, the largest cement producer in Chongqing of Sichuan province, China.

Thanks to the acquisition, the group's annual production capacity in China will exceed 64 million metric tons. Taiwan Cement aims to become one of China's top-five cement producers.

This is the third time for Taiwan Cement to acquire China's medium- and small-sized cement plants so far this year, following the acquisition of Gangan cement plant and Scitus Cement (China) Holdings in Guizhou province. Taiwan Cement spent NT$11.3 billion to complete the acquisition projects, helping it boost annual production capacity by 15.4 million metric tons.

C.C. Huang, vice president of Taiwan Cement, said his group already has two production lines in Chongqing with annual production capacity of four million metric tons of cement. After acquiring Kehua, the group will see annual production capacity amount to 11 million metric tons of cement in Chongqing, meeting one-fourth of Chongqing's market demand.

Over the past several months, Taiwan Cement has boosted production capacity in Southern China, and Guizhou, Yunan, Sichuan Provinces. Taiwan Cement chairman Leslie Koo has projected the group's annual production capacity in China to reach 100 million metric tons in 2016.

Koo noted his group has to make more efforts to keep its status as one of China's top ten cement conglomerates in the years to come.

Loesche India has been Growing

Loesche India (LOI) was incorporated in the year 1995. Since then, LOI is engaged and fully equipped to handle supply of dry vertical grinding plants for Cement, Steel, Mineral and Power Generation industries. The success of LOI encompasses various activities and is briefly highlighted as follows:

Since inception, LOI has emerged as the market leader for supply of Vertical mills with its market share of 40 to 50 percent. LOI has sold over 100 Vertical Roller Mills for Raw, Coal and Cement grinding to various clients in India. All these mills are operating to the complete satisfaction of the clients. Several repeat orders from various customers are a testimony to the superior technology and excellent quality of equipment supplied and services rendered. The customer list includes all the prestigious cement manufacturers.

To keep pace with increased business, LOI has strengthened its Human Resources (HR) both in terms of numbers and skills. Today, LOI employs nearly 125 personnel. LOI has absorbed technical know-how from its parent company adequately and also adopted skills to cater to the demands of the Indian industry on its own. Today, LOI is fully equipped to offer field services towards installation, commissioning, optimization and troubleshooting entirely by its own expertise.

LOI has spearheaded the introduction of new technologies developed by its parent company in the Indian market. LOI is proud to have introduced for the first time in the world the 6 Roller mill for Raw grinding (LM 69.6) and 3+3 roller configuration for Cement grinding (LM 56.3+3), PPC grinding in stand alone grinding units without hot gas generator, 4 roller mill for coal grinding and upgrading mills with several new design features.

Reliance cementation Pvt. Ltd. is putting up a 3.3 MTPA new green field integrated unit (IU) at Maihar, Madhya Pradesh and stand alone cement grinding unit (GU) of 1.1 MTPA at Kundanganj in Raebareli district, Uttar Pradesh, India.

For these projects, Reliance has placed orders on Loesche for the following mills:

• Two Nos. LM 56.3+3 for Maihar IU with designed capacity of 2+240 t/h at a fineness of 4000 Blaine

• Two Nos. LM 46.2+2 for Kundanganj GU with designed capacity of 2+160 t/h at a fineness of 4000 Blaine

In these projects, Loesche is taking care of supply of mechanical equipment for the cement grinding plants and the supervision for erection and commissioning up to establishing the performance guarantees. Reliance is taking care of all the civil work includeing concrete and structural work.

PFEIFFER Vertical Roller Mill Type MVR-5600 C-4 for Jaypee Cement Ltd, Balaji Works, India

A cement mill of the type MVR 5600 C-4 with 4 rollers to be installed in Balaji, India is at the order processing stage at Gebr. Pfeiffer AG. The guaranteed throughput is 310 t/h for Portland cement with a specific surface of 3,000 cm2/g Blaine and 320 t/h for a cement with a 30 percent flyash portion, with a specific surface of 3,500 cm2/g Blaine. The guaranteed specific power consumption at the counters for mill, classifier, and mill fan is a total 30.9 kWh/t for flyash cement production.

This mill will be driven by a 6,600 kW MultiDrive with 4 modules of 1,650 kW each, with frequency converters. The weight of one module comprising motor, coupling, gearbox, and base frame is 22 tons which is much less than the weight of a comparable conventional planetary gear. To be noted that the drive modules in the above mentioned Holcim works in France and the works to be set up in Balaji are identical, reflecting the aim of standardization which is a practical advantage of the modular design of this drive concept.

Gebr. Pfeiffer AG will supply the machinery for the Balaji plant, starting from the feed metering system and ending with finished product handling. Delivery is scheduled for autumn 2010, with commissioning to be carried out in the first half of 2011.

Implementing SCR in the Cement Industry is the Low-hanging Fruit in the EU

Implementing SCR techniques in the cement industry is a low-hanging fruit that can deliver significant environmental and health benefits. Setting NO_x emission limit values at 200mg/Nm³ will promote uptake of the more advanced SCR techniques and in doing so maximize reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions. Additional environmental benefits include reductions in emissions of volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans.

If just 40 percent of cement plants implement Best Available Technology (BAT) there would be significant reduction.

If the low end of BATAELs were achieved the estimated net benefit would be €630 million per year.

	High End of BATAELs*	Low End of BATAELs*
Annual Emissions Reductions	29,000 tonnes of NO_x p/a	57,000 tonnes of NO_x p/a
Health Benefits of NO_x Reduction	€330 million p/a	€660 million p/a
Costs of Implementing BAT	€15 million p/a	€30 million p/a
Net Benefit of Installing BAT	€315 million p/a	€630 million p/a