Cement plant case studies and insights

Having been impressed with the first pre-commercial installation of the FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer at the Mannok cement plant in Ireland, Continental Cement has awarded Fuller a contract for the first commercial installation of this new technology at its Davenport cement plant in Buffalo, Iowa in the United States.

Fuller was awarded a contract that will both increase the plant’s capacity to 3900 tpd and at the same time decrease its dependence on fossil fuels.

At CalPortland Cement’s Mojave plant, kiln production was being limited by the raw mill, which couldn’t cope with the increasing demand of a hot market. The company made the decision to invest in a new mill, and settled on an OK™ raw mill 48-4 from Fuller – the first OK raw mill to go into operation in North America.

Cemento PANAM has achieved fantastic success reducing its carbon footprint and fossil fuel bill by implementing a 350 m long waste heat bypass system, using waste heat from the cooler to dry materials in its cement mills.

Upgrading an existing ball mill circuit with hydraulic roller presses and TRIBOMAX® wear surfaces achieved a 127% increase in production, at the same time as lowering power consumption by 25%, at JK Cement’s Mangrol cement plant.

The team in Mannok’s cement facilities are celebrating the successful implementation of the FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer, a new combustion system which is set to eliminate the need for fossil fuels in the clinker production process at the plant, the most carbon intensive stage of cement production.

At the Cementos Molins plant in Sant Viçent dels Horts, efforts are underway to reduce emissions and increase efficiency.

Improved process efficiency, improved equipment reliability and a reduction in energy consumption of up to 3.8% on the cement raw mill are some of the results seen at Çimentaş İzmir after implementing advanced process control software from Fuller. We partnered up with Pacpro in Istanbul to implement the software, and Pacpro will now continue to provide locally-based support, backed by our global team of experts, to realise continuing operational success of the new system.

In 2020, Chinese government announced that China would attempt to reach ‘peak carbon’ by 2030 and achieve carbon neutral status by 2060. As a result, all the country’s heavy emitters are seeking ways to reduce their carbon emissions and meet this ambitious target. The pressure on the cement industry is high. Fuel substitution is one of the most straightforward routes to emissions reduction, as something that can be done immediately with readily available technology.

When negotiations began with CalPortland for a new raw grinding circuit at their Mojave plant in California, the world was still relatively normal. And when contracts were signed in Spring 2020, no one expected the Covid-19 pandemic to last for more than a few months. But as the pandemic raged on, it wasn’t long before Fuller's project execution team realised they were going to hit supply chain problems.

Do you worry about your plant reliability? Sustainability? Cybersecurity? Finding skilled operators? With our latest ECS/ControlCenter v8 process control software platform, you don’t have to. As a cement producer in Bangladesh, Premier Cement, is finding out.

Cementi Costantinopoli is a family-owned cement manufacturer located in Southern Italy. With a product range including pozzolanic and limestone cements, the company wished to expand its packing and palletizing line to support increased demand. As an existing customer with a 2800 bag/hour VENTOMATIC® packing and palletizing line in operation for more than 20 years, Cementi Costantinopoli returned to us for this state-of-the-art expansion project, which adds capacity to pack 5000 bags/hour of 25 kg.

Votorantim Cimentos' Hasanoglan Plant in Turkey has a capacity of 2800 tpd of clinker and 1 million tpa of cement, all destined for the local market. The plant was operating an old Fuller mechanical packer with a capacity of 40 tph. Though the equipment had served them well, it was no longer meeting their needs in terms of productivity. Moreover, newer VENTOMATIC® packing technology could offer a more environmentally friendly dust-free performance and greater weighing accuracy.

Indian Cement producer Shree Cement installs Fuller ECS/PlantDataManagement across 16 plants and 24 lines to drive efficiency and deliver increased productivity. The order also includes the downtime analysis solution, ECS/UptimeGo and access to the mobile plant management app, SiteConnect.

Capital Cement in San Antonio, Texas was the first producer to have the Cross-Bar® Cooler installed in 2009 – still early days for the Fuller team working on the development, but little did they know that the new design would dominate the market in the following decade.

Data standardisation has unlocked the digital revolution in other industries. It’s time for the cement industry to harness that power for change. At this year’s Optimisation conference, hosted by World Cement, our Chief Digital Officer, Mikko Tepponen and Head of Digital Development, Anders Noe Dam delivered a call for data standardisation in cement.

At the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, India made the commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070. As part of the roadmap to get there, India will bring its economy's carbon intensity down to 45 per cent by 2030.

Ssangyong Cement wanted to increase alternative fuels (AF) use at its Donghae and Yeongwol cement plants. They were interested in using the HOTDISC® reactor, one of our MissionZero flagship products. But, it didn’t fit within their existing SLC calciner layouts and a conversion to an ILC calciner to increase AF firing was not economically or technically feasible. They challenged us to redesign the HOTDISC reactor to suit an SLC calciner system.

New greenfield contract from Indian Cement producer Shree Cement sees Fuller deliver a series of sustainable equipment, including the world’s largest Cross-Bar® Cooler, the Fuller OK™ Cement mill and JETFLEX® Burner.

Vertical roller mills and ball mills are regularly taken out of operation for routine maintenance. Some plants even shut their mills down every week. Yet, gearbox inspections are typically scheduled for the annual maintenance shutdown when resources are stretched. This is making life harder than it needs to be for all involved. Let’s simplify things. Consider scheduling your gearbox inspection to later in the year when you can access the expertise and tools you need. This way you can be sure you’ll have access to the most experienced service technicians, equipped with all the tools they need to get the job done.

At a new project in France, Fuller will deliver equipment to replace clinker with environmentally friendly clay, cutting up to 16% of CO2 emissions compared to existing cement products. The order includes the new Fuller flash calciner technology, environmental control system and alternative fuel storage. Final commissioning of the project is scheduled for the end of 2023.

CalPortland’s clinker crusher problems were solved by the new Heavy-duty Roller Breaker (HRB), supplied and installed by Fuller. Our one-stop-shop service was able to save them time and money, ensuring the successful completion of the project within the scheduled shutdown.

When Cementos Argos decided to upgrade the control system at its Cartagena cement plant, they started on an unexpected journey. A journey that would end with the implementation of a virtualised high-availability automation system to host a number of Fuller's software products for operation of the complete plant. And all running flawlessly from the start.

We believe Reliability Centred Maintenance is an essential tool for an industry determined to increase sustainability. As cement plant operators come to understand the connection between equipment reliability and environmental impact, we expect more and more plants to undertake their own RCM implementation program.

Clay is a naturally occurring material found almost everywhere around the world with the potential to replace 30% of the energy intensive clinker. But how does the calculations look in terms of fuel- and power consumption. We did the math.

In recent decades, the cement industry has made great strides towards reducing its carbon emissions. But while the utilisation of alternative fuels is increasing and new technologies are driving efficiency in the cement manufacturing process, a sticking point remains: The calcination of limestone is the industry’s largest source of emissions. To address this, cement manufacturers must reduce the quantity of clinker in the mix and replace it with supplementary cementitious materials, or SCMs.

Yanbu Cement and Fuller have proven that two production lines running on PLCs from different vendors and older I/O’s can be upgraded and controlled from one common control platform. This increases productivity and knowledge sharing between operators.

When you have the need for several mechanical upgrades across a few of your plants, how do you manage the workload? Few cement manufacturers these days have the resources required to carry out the work themselves. So, do you divvy it up, giving the jobs, to whoever can give you the best price, or do you partner with a supplier you can rely on to carry the load and let you focus on the efficiency of your operations?

Due to high alternative fuel (AF) use at Schwenk Zement KG’s Mergelstetten plant, a solid fuel feed system that could cope with highly variable feed rates was needed. The plant had been using two Pfister weighfeeders to achieve the required flexibility but recently upgraded one of these with FEEDflex. Now the plant gets the same performance with only one weighfeeder.

A Jetflex® burner upgrade at Salt River Materials Group’s (SRMG) Clarkdale plant in Arizona, USA, delivers the benefits of a new kiln burner. This ‘out-of-the-box’ solution results in a stronger, better flame, and a more consistent kiln operation and clinker quality. Previously published in ICR, May 2019.