Cement, Energy and Environment

- ' INDIA'S PER CAPITA CEMENT CONSUMPTION WILL DEFINITELY IMPROVE IN COMING YEARS' The Begamo, Italy-based ltalcementi Group is the fifth largest cement manufacturer in the world. The 150-year-old company went on a global purchasing Ciments Francais, the French Cement maker, in 1992, followed by a series of acquisitions in emerging countries, including India's Zuari Cement. Carlo Pesenti , Group CEO of ltalcementi. is a fifth-generation member of the Pesenti family that has a substantial stake in the company. In an interview at Kochi, where he attended the ground-breaking ceremony of a port-based one million-tonne Zuari Cement terminal. the seventh of the group, Pesenti told Business Line that India is a key market for the group and that the group's global footprint would continue to increase. India is a huge market. As of now, the per capita consumption of cement is one of the lowest in India. But India's economy is growing fast. Over the past 15 years, the per capita consumption of cement has almost doubled in the country. Though the growth in demand for cement in the last fi– nancial year was just 3.5 per cent, it will definitely improve in the coming years. ltalcementi are more active in the South, where we have a market share of 5 per cent , and we are fast expanding our manufacturing facilities. The Group is going to expand operations in the country. The cement terminal, they are now bui lding at Kochi will enhance Zuari Cement's storage and distribution capabi lities and increase their market access in more States. A new grinding faci lity is coming up in Solapur, Maharashtra. And, well , ltalcementi has big plans for India. Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line, New Delhi 30.04.2014 Pg. No 4-.5 RAMCO CEMENTS LOOKS TO EXTEND LIFE OF LIMESTONE MINES Ramco Cements, which has commissioned a limestone beneficiation plant at its Alathiyur unit to upgrade the cement raw material and extend the life of its mines. is setting up one more such unit at its factory near Madurai. Beneficiation is a process by which low-grade limestone, which would otherwise have been rejected , is converted into raw material for cement production . A V Dharmakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer, Ramco Cements, said the beneficiation plant will help the company extend the life of its limestone mines by 25-30 years. 'Novel Measure' The company is setting up one more such plant at a cost of Rs 38 crore in South Tamil Nadu. This plant will be commissioned in about a month and use a colour-sorter, an optical system. to remove black stones from the crushed limestone. Limestone beneficiation is a novel attempt in the domestic cement industry, said Dharmakrishnan. Cement-grade limestone can contain about 11 -14 per cent si licon dioxide, which can be twice as much in low-grade material. The company has to blend low-grade limestone with high-quality, sweetener-grade limestone containing 8 per cent silicon dioxide to be able to use the raw material. Ramco Cements' is investing over ~ 70 crore in beneficiation systems. Its ~ 37 crore beneficiation plant at Alarthiyur comprises a large, sieved rotat ing drum that scrubs the limestone in water to remove sand-like waste and deliver beneficiated limestone to the three-million-tonne a year cement plant. There are two beneficiation units, each processing about 200 tonnes of limestone an hour. The company has a total annual capacity of about 13 million tonnes of cement production across five plants in the South . Blending process Without the beneficiation plant, the Alathiyur unit uses about 10,000 tonnes of limestone daily, including 6800 tonnes of cement grade limestone and 1500 tonnes of low-grade raw material blended with 1700 tonnes of sweetener. The cement plant can now simply use equal quantities of beneficiated and high-grade limestone. Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line, Ariyalur, 01.05.2014 Pg. No. 3-4 RELIANCE CEMENT COMMISSIONS THE RAEBARELI CEMENT PRODUCTION UNIT Reliance Cement has recently commissioned its 2-million tonne per annum (MTPA) plant at Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh . The plant was set up at a cost of Rs 500 crore. This plant will consume about 6,00,000 tonne of fly ash annually for cement production. The fly ash is to be supplied by 27