Cemex to buy Chinese cement Cemex will buy about 1 million mt of cement from China in 1998 at a cost of US$50 per mt with plans to sell the product into California, a company official said recently.

"We are buying product in China for this year for our operations in the United States, and we have closed contracts for close to 1 million mt at very competitive prices," the director of international trade for Cemex, Xavier Prieto, told reporters.

Japanese export to rise Chichibu Onada Cement Corp. plans to set up exports to the United States from two joint ventures in China in an effort to compensate for falling exports in southeast Asia.

The joint ventures should increase exports of cement from 45,000 mt in January and February to 77,500 mt in March. Chichibu Onada plans to export 1 million mt to the United States in 1998, up 72% from the previous year. The two plants have a joint capacity of 2.7 million mtpy. Previously they shipped 70% of the output to southeast Asia and other neighboring areas, but the recent economic upheaval in the region has caused a slump in demand.

O&K at work in China In the Shandong province of Eastern China, the Korean cement company Daewoo has three O&K excavators at work in its quarry. The Daewoo cement works, supplied by Krupp Polysius in 1996, is one of China's biggest and most modern cement works producing 7,200 mtpd.

Since the end of 1997, three O&K RH30Es have been working at the quarry face. The 80-ton crawler shovels load a fleet of 30-ton articulated steered dumpers in four cycles.

"In spite of the difficult heavy-layered and fissured material, which is hard to drill and blast, the RH30Es come up with the required output," said O&K's China representative Fu Hong Xing. A view of the electrostatic precipitator, cooling tower, and preheater during the construction phase of the San Teh Co.'s cement plant in China's Fujian province.

KHD and ABB In China ABB's Building Material, Mining, and Mineral Industries business unit, working for mechanical contractor KHD, has been instrumental in the recent start up of a massive rotary kiln plant for Fujian Long Yan San Teh Cement in the Fujian province of China.

The new plant, a joint investment between Hong Kong Xing San Teh Co. and Singapore San Teh Co., transformed Fujian into a modern, export-oriented enterprise with a capacity of 2,000 mtpd.

The San Teh operation, a greenfield plant started in the early 1990s, is the key project in the eighth and ninth Five Year Plans for the province and has benefited from the support of several state agencies. ABB BMI along with its local partners for the installation engineering, the Nanjing Research and Development Institute, worked together to bring the latest cement production technology to the region.

To complete the scope of the supply for the plant, ABB BMI delivered a complement of ABB products from different parts of the organization, such as those from CMC Systems in Switzerland; ABB Industry Oy in Finland; and Industrial Systems in Sweden. All process operations will be automated using the Advant Cement System

Additionally, motor control centers (MCCs) for low-voltage distribution, starter equipment, high voltage, low-voltage, and DC motors also have been delivered by ABB.

Singapore stays stable The Republic of Singapore is a "safe haven" for investors despite the recent currency crisis in the region, according to the latest report from the Business Risk Service (BERI).

The report, which ranked profit opportunities for 50 major countries for next year and the next five years, set Singapore as the world's second most profitable place in which to invest, with Switzerland retaining first place.

The U.S.-based risk consultant tracked developments from July to mid-November 1997 to come up with its "profit opportunity" recommendations.

Regional countries' ratings dipped because the financial crisis sparked by the free-fall of the Thai Baht in July resulted in the Baht, the Indonesian Rupiah, and the Malaysian Ringgit shedding between 30% and 50% of their value against the U.S. dollar. The Singapore dollar fell by 12.7% in the same period.

Bearing in mind the current currency crisis in the Asia-Pacific region and the number of infrastructure and construction projects that were either cancelled or postponed, it was no surprise that the number of delegates at this year's AFCM conference was somewhat smaller than two years ago in Bali.

Those who did attend, however, had a positive view of the future and a strong belief that the current downturn would not last long.

This year's conference, organized by the Thailand Fellowship of Cement Manufacturers, was held in the Shangri-La hotel in Thailand's capital Bangkok and still attracted large numbers of international exhibitors.

The theme of the conference was the modernization of the cement industry. Speakers from countries such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and Thailand presented more than 20 papers on subjects from quarry optimization and extraction systems to integrated electrical solutions for cement plants.

Towards the end of the symposium, the papers concentrated strongly on grinding applications and technology with speakers from IHI Gebr. Pfieffer AG, Loesche, and F.L. Smidth covered such topics as new pregrinding systems incorporating a vertical roller mill in combination with a vibrating screen; energy-saving facets of modern vertical roller mills; cutting operating costs with the Polysius slag grinding roller mill; operation experience of the Loesche roller mills; and features of the Cemax mill marketed by F.L. Smidth.

An interesting paper was put forward by Gerard Marchall of FCB, who outlined the latest results from the Tepetzingo Cement plant in Mexico, which is using a Horomill unit for both cement and raw material grinding. Marchall concluded his presentation on the first installation of a Horomill for dual-purpose grinding with the statement that "the machine is now almost optimized, with a pretty good availability." The authenticity of his claims for the unit was backed up by his announcement that the Tepetzingo plant has just placed an order for a second Horomill.

No one can ignore the increasingly important role that computers and electronics are playing in cement production and quality control, and the final two papers highlighted the latest techniques in operation and suggested a vision for the future.

Jan Hove Sorensen of FLS Automation, Denmark, presented a practical experience of the Summit Series solution at Asia Cement. The paper stressed that the latest technologies incorporate in their design criteria the requirements presented by the cement industry. With the application of one computer and software platform, Asia Cement has avoided problems of communication and interface between computers having different networking capabilities and operating systems that could in the future prevent the integration of all new high-level and quality-control systems.

In summing up his paper on Integrated Electrical Solutions enhanced with the power of Integrated Information Management, Alfredo Zeta of ABB Industrie AG, Switzerland, told the audience that need and benefit of integrated information management across cement facilities and corporate structures is growing-as is the need to build solid foundations when merging process and office information to provide business decision support. "Information management is crucial to utilize the full power of integrated electrical solutions and work process optimization in organizations with fewer organizational levels," he said. "The required cement information management solutions are available with the necessary professional advice and services for their optimum utilization to enhance electrical solutions."

Details of any of the papers presented at the symposium can be obtained from the Thailand Fellowship of Cement Manufacturers, fax: (+662) 229 4980.