Global CemFuels News

Netherlands: N+P Recycling has acquired all the shares in Subcoal International as well as Subcoal Production. The move follows the initial purchase of a majority holding in these companies in 2013. N+P has since invested in the development of the Subcoal companies, including work at the Delfzijl production site.

The Subcoal concept was developed in 1998 by DSM but was only fully implemented on a large scale in 2010. Since N+P’s involvement in 2013, the concept has developed globally with demand growing for Subcoal as an alternative fuel used by cement or power plants.

Based on the success of the concept N+P expects a growth of the production capacity to 0.5 – 0.7Mt/yr. The first new production facility is expected in the UK by mid-2018.

Brazil: BNDES, the national development bank, has approved a US$7.4m loan for Votorantim Cimentos to co-process alternative fuels. The funds will be used to adapt the company's industrial units to process industrial waste, tyres and biomass, according to the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper. The cement producer is preparing to spend US$13.6m towards modifying its plants at Salto de Pirapora in Sao Paulo and Edealina in Goias.

Canada: The New Democratic Party has called for a ban of burning tyres in Nova Scotia. The opposition political party held a news conference with opponents of the government's decision in July 2017 to approve a one-year pilot project allowing Lafarge Canada to burn tyres for energy at the company's Brookfield cement plant, according to the Canadian Press newspaper. No tyres have been burned at the plant so far as the cement producer waits for industrial approval of the project from the provincial government.

Mark Butler of the Ecology Action Centre said the government’s decision was based on a Dalhousie University engineering study that was too narrow in its focus and wasn't peer reviewed. However the government has said that it used several technical studies to inform its decision. A group of local residents also started legal action in August 2017 on the grounds that the project violated the province's Environment Act.

Cyprus: N+P International has extended its solid recovered fuel (SRF) supply agreement with Vassiliko Cement to the end of 2020. The deal also includes an option to further extend the agreement to the end of 2022. N+P has been supplying Vassiliko Cement with SRF from the UK and Italy by sea since 2015.

“This contract is the foundation of a long-term cooperation between Vassiliko Cement, Enerco Energy Recovery and N+P. The parties intend to maximise alternative fuel consumption in the Vassiliko Cement plant, to do so parties recently carried out a trial to co-grind N+P’s Subcoal pellets in the plants coal mills. The first results of this trial are looking very promising and further trials will be done the near future. We agreed not to disclose precise contract volumes, but at present >2500t/week of SRF is shipped into Vassiliko Cement,” said a representative of N+P.

Vassiliko Cement plans to reach a 55% substitution rate of alternative fuels by 2020.

India: Wonder Cement has signed a memorandum of understanding with the municipal council of Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh. The agreement will see the council arrange refuse collection, separation and transportation to the cement company’s plant at Nimbahera, according to the Press Trust of India. The council is already processing wet waste to make organic fertiliser.