India: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has lobbied the government in its Pre-Budget Memorandum 2020-21 over customs duties. The body is suggesting a reduction on the customs duty on tyre chips for use as alternative fuel (AF) to 5% from 10%. There is currently no import tax on cement and duties of 5% and below on various clinker constituents.

Netherlands: Waste management service N+P has said that it will aim to supply 1.2Mt of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) to UK recipients expected to include cement producers. It will release full details of the contracts in question in early 2020. N+P said that due to import tax it would seek to supply its Netherlands contracts with waste from sources other than the UK.

Bolivia: Empresa Minera Industrial’s 0.1Mt/yr integrated cement plant has resumed operations across both dry lines following a fuel shortage. Tinformas has reported that a natural gas shortage caused the suspension of operations in November 2019 following an attack on a pipeline.

India: Waste-processing company Green Worms has won a contract for landfill extraction, refuse-derived fuel (RDF) processing and transportation to cement plants from the town authority of Fort Kochi in Kerala. The New Indian Express newspaper has reported that recyclable material will be removed before the waste is processed into fuel. “89% of waste is recyclable. But the rest can be converted into RDF,” said Green Worms project manager Thajudeen Abubacker.