Global CemFuels News

Oman: Oman Cement has signed a memorandum of understanding with Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (Be'ah), a government-owned solid waste management company. The deal covers using tyres from Be’ah’s waste collection sites to use in the cement producer’s kilns, according to the Oman Daily Observer. Around 45,000t of ‘end-of-life’ tyres are collected in the country each year, particularly in Dhofar Governorate. In 2017 Be’ah invited proposals to recycle and/or dispose of the excess tyres.

Russia: LafargeHolcim Russia has won a Change Management Visionary award for its co-processing activities at its Ferzikovo cement plant in Kaluga. The company says it is the only business licensed to co-process waste by the Russian government. The Geocycle operation at the unit processed around 26,000t of solid municipal waste in 2017 sourced from the Kaluga and Moscow regions. The plant processed 1000t/month of plastic packaging waste in 2017 and this is expected to rise to 2000t/month in 2018. The company says that its treatment is aligned with European Union waste treatment principles.

Dominican Republic: Alejandro Ramirez, the president of Cemex Dominicana, has welcomed the approval of a new waste management law, including support for the co-processing of alternative fuels. Earlier in 2018 a bill on solid waste management was introduced to the government that promoted co-processing solid waste and implementing a selective tax on products that create it.

UK: Bunting Magnetics is celebrating the 40th anniversary in October 2018 of the Master Magnets brand. The Birmingham-based magnetic separator and metal detector manufacturer produces equipment for the recycling, mining and mineral processing industrial sectors. Bunting Magnetics purchased the brand in early 2017.

Master Magnets was founded in 1978 by Geoff Worley, a qualified engineer with 15 years’ experience in the magnetics industry. The company grew in the 1980s and 1990s with an emphasis on the UK coal industry and global mineral processing projects. Later it built a reputation for building permanent overband magnets that are used for the continuous removal of tramp ferrous material from a product stream such as in recycling. The company then worked with recycling companies to develop a compact overband magnet that was better suited to this sector.

In 2003, Master Magnets acquired Integrated Recycling Systems and relocated to Redditch. Further acquisition took place in 2005 with the purchase of the metal detection business. This further expanded their manufacturing portfolio as customers were now able to purchase their metal separation and detection solution from one supplier.

Geoff Worley took partial retirement from the company and Adrian Coleman became general manager in 2008. Following the sale to Bunting Magnetics in 2017 Coleman stayed on as general manager.

US: The city of Fort Myers in Florida is planning to send 30,000t of ‘toxic’ sludge for disposal at LafargeHolcim’s Theodore cement plant in Alabama. The waste will be transported by truck to LafargeHolcim quarry north of Crystal River for pre-treatment and then onto the Theodore plant, according to the Citrus Country Chronicle newspaper. The company hopes to start the removal process in October 2018 and complete it by the end of the year. Permit application for the removal process are still on-going. The ‘toxic’ sludge came from the city’s water plant. It was dumped in fields in Fort Myers from the 1960s to the 1990s.