Cement, Energy and Environment

..-.....___ CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE (FOR OPTIMISATION, ALTERNATIVE FUELS, NEW CEMENTS, COLLABORATION) In Its January 2005 Issue, World Cement published an Interview with Philippe Quemener, who was at that time Vice President of Lafarge Polska. He is now CEO of Europe Technical Centre (etc), and Paul Maxwell-Cook recently caught up with him in his office in Lyon. Post Kujawy World Cement first met up with Philippe Quemener during a visit to Lafarge's Kujawy cement plant in Poland in 2004. It is good to hear how well the plant is performing, six years after it was commissioned. "As you know, the kiln started up in 2003, and it has been performing extremely well ever since with no real problems," says Quemener, proudly. "In fact, it is one of the best performing kilns in Europe. It operates with low heat consumption, something of the order of 3000 m joules per t. as originally contracted to reach, at 80 kWh/t of cement. The latest development at the plant is the increased use of alternative fuels, now more than 30 per cent, mainly consisting of tyres and shredded plastics, thus demonstrating the flexibility of the kiln line. The company is very happy with the way the team is managing it." After Quemener's time in Poland had to come to an end, he moved to Malaysia where he was Industrial Director for Lafarge's operations in the country. Here, he managed three large integrated plants located at Langkawi, Kanthan and Rwang (previously owned TECHNOLOGY TREND and operated by Blue Circle), plus a large grinding station "We considered it more interesting to combine these two technical centres and Europe Centre." create one Technical close to Singapore. "If was a very interesting experience working in another continent and especially in a country with sold out market," says Quemener. "The equipment in these plants is very big; for example there is a 7000 tpd kiln operating in Kanthan, while the combined production capacity of all three plants when I was there was 10 million t. The major objective was to train people and to have the right people in the right places. My colleagues in the Training Centre have confirmed that there has been great improvements and the production teams in the plants Preparation of fused beads for X-ray fluorescence analysts (XRF). Lab furnace for test1ng burnablltty. 9