El Salvador's sole cement producer, Cementos de El Salvador S.A. (CESSA) — partly owned by Holcim — awarded F.L. Smidth A/S a US$13.5 million turn-key contract. The engineering firm is to convert the customer's production line near the town of Metapan close to the Guatemalan border from an oil-fired to a petcoke-fueled facility, the latter representing a more economical source of energy. The plant anticipates switching from oil to petcoke firing in the spring of 2003.

The scope of the contract comprises all machinery and engineering, electrical project design, the control system (supplied by FLS Automation), erection, and commissioning services. The conversion to petcoke-firing entails installation of an Atox coal mill, a baghouse filter, a feeding system (supplied by Pfister, another member of F.L. Smidth Group), and a Duoflex burner. The contract also includes supplies of coal-firing equipment to another CESSA-owned cement plant nearby. In 2000, F.L. Smidth also supplied and commissioned the production line at the 750,000-mtpy Metapan plant.