Displaying items by tag: Lithuania

Lithuania: Recycling company Ekobāze is set to construct a plastic byproducts and solid recovered fuel (SRF) processing complex in the Akmenė Free Economic Zone. The project is valued at about €12m and received €10m in EU financing, according to BNS News. It will create 60 new jobs. The complex will supply SRF to Akmenės Cementas, the sole cement producer in Lithuania, utilising post-consumer plastic unsuitable for recycling in its production processes. Ekobāze will process other plastic into pellets. Construction will begin at the end of 2025, with production starting in early 2027.

Lithuania: Arturas Zaremba, the head of Akmenes Cementas, has warned that government proposals to increase the import tax on coal in 2024 and the abolition of subsidies for the fuel will affect the company. The country’s parliament is also proposing scaling the import tax based on a CO2 scale, according to the Baltic Business Daily newspaper. Zaremba said that the cement producer uses 130,000t/yr of coal. However, it is currently investing Euro22m on an upgrade to its Akmenes integrated plant to allow it to switch to using a higher proportion of solid-recovered fuel. It currently has a 10% alternative fuels substitution rate using dried sewage sludge and tyres.

Zaremba said "There will be some impact because we will still have some of that coal left, but not as much as we would have had without the investment. I have not followed how much they plan to increase the excise duty, but we need to look into how much that would be in the financial terms. Any increase has an impact."

Lithuania: The Lithuanian Parliament Committee on Environment Protection is evaluating alternative fuels options at the Akmenes Cementas plant including refuse-derived fuel (RDF), industrial waste and sewage sludge. The cement producer has presented a Euro7m plan to install new equipment to allow it to use up to 150,000t/yr of waste fuels, according to the Lithuanian News Agency. It has also asked the government to ensure that its can use waste produced in Lithuania to cut its costs and complete internationally.

Lithuania: Finnish-owned Lithuanian recycling services company Kuusakoski saw its revenues grow by 21% year-on-year to Euro32.5m in 2014. Its annual profit doubled to approximately Euro0.29m.

The company's performance has improved amid changes in the scrap metal purchase market, in particular the bankruptcy of Liepajas Metalurgs in 2013 and the exit of one more company from the Lithuanian market in 2014, Paulius Juska, according to Kuusakoski CEO Verslo Zinios. In 2015, Kuusakoski expects the waste tyre collection business to fuel its growth.

"We hope that Akmenes Cementas will resume burning waste tyres at its cement plant this year. If that is the case, we could supply tyres to the facility. It would enable us to increase the quantities of tyres that we collect and to generate more revenues from car service centres for the collection of old tyres and their supply to the disposal facility," said Juska.