Cement Industry Suppliers’ Forum

CISF Annual Conference 2017

Members’ Report

The Cement Industry Suppliers’ Forum held its

conference and annual dinner on 3rd

/ 4th

May, at the

Welcombe Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon, which was

attended by 42 members, speakers and exhibitors.

Conference Themes

First impressions augured well on arrival in the bright

morning sunshine; the Welcombe Hotel, set in

extensive grounds, just oozed country-house style.

High ceilings, oak panelling, and a magnificent

fireplace in the coffee lounge set a tone of comfort

and elegance that characterised this year’s

conference venue.

After a warm welcome and registration, a hot buffet

lunch was taken in the restaurant overlooking the

parterre, with views across to the distant River Avon.

Above: Welcombe Hotel and the coffee lounge

Top right: Edwin Trout and (right) Aurelie Delannoy

The proceedings opened in the Welcombe Suite at

1.00pm, with an introduction from conference

convenor Edwin Trout and a review of the British and

Irish cement industries over past 12 months. This

provided a contextual overview for some of the

themes to be treated in more detail by subsequent

speakers. Edwin highlighted the acquisition of Hope

Construction Materials by the newly renamed

Breedon Group, and its subsequent expansion by

bolting on Sherburn Minerals and Pro Mini Mix. After

briefly considering market conditions in the UK and

the cement makers’ commercial performance, he

turned to recent announcements of capital

investment in production (notably by Hanson),

alternative fuels (in Ireland) and distribution. He

pointed to the opening of several import terminals by

Ecocem, Francis Flower and Hanson, and parallel

investment in existing aggregate wharfs. Investment

in railway infrastructure had been notable during the

year and several major contracts signed with road

hauliers too. He ended with comments on

sustainable development reporting, and the role of

MPA in coordinating and presenting the strategic

interests of industry, not least in planning for Brexit.

Aurelie Delannoy, Chief Economist for the Mineral

Products Association, expanded on introductory

comments on the market, highlighting the

exceptional levels of uncertainty surrounding the

seismic shifts of the EU Referendum, Donald Trump’s

presidency and the triggering of Article 50, not to

mention the impending French election. She

acknowledged the better-than-expected resilience of

the British economy, based in some measure on

consumer confidence, housebuilding and the service

sector, but conceded the rate of growth had slowed.

Perhaps surprisingly with falling exchange rate,

exports were down too. She warned that business

confidence was fragile and so commercial investment

had retrenched, and that construction activity was

reliant on increased spending on infrastructure

projects. That said, although the forecast was for a

slower rate of growth, it was still positive. Inflation

was rising, from almost nil in mid-2016, and what

increases there had been in the price of cement

largely reflected the rising cost of raw materials.

The various exhibitors participating in the

conference, their stands arranged around the sides

and rear of the room, were then invited to the front

to introduce themselves. First was Norman Greig,

Secretary General of the World Cement Association,

who had a formal presentation to give, introducing

this newly established organisation and its aspirations

to represent the interests of cement making on the

global stage – building on existing representation at

the national or regional level. Norman highlighted

the legal advice offered by WCA on arbitration and

contractual matters. Following in quick succession

were informal statements from the other exhibitors:

Richard Woosnam (Fairport Engineering), Paul Brown

(Global Cement Magazine) Daren Spice (Gordian

Strapping), Nick Philips (Hanson Cement), Colum

McCague (MPA), Kathy Calverley (The Concrete

Society), each drawing attention to what their

organisation offers. Both WCA and Fairport

announced business card prize-draws to be held later

in the proceedings.

Breaking for a cup of tea, delegates spent 20 minutes

or in conversation at the exhibition stands.

Keynote: emissions compliance strategy

With a solo slot next, Richard Woosnam of Fairport

Engineering gave the keynote address, on his firm’s

development of an emissions compliance strategy for

the cement industry. He set the scene by explaining

that the requirements for reducing levels of dust,

NOx and SOx are getting ever tighter. Germany,

moreover, is setting the pace and is some way ahead

of European requirements. He referred to the Waste

Incineration Directive and to the requirement for

manufacturers to use Best Available Techniques

(BAT), before covering a range of possible measures

and commenting on each. Turning to the role of

alternative fuels, he drew on his company’s strategic

decision to invest in handling systems for waste-

derived alternative fuels – particularly the more

highly refined SRF, or Secondary Recycled Fuels – and

to develop a processing plant at Huyton. He

emphasised the importance of quality control before

reception, referring to what he called ‘the Primark

effect’ in waste disposal. He called for a new

designation, Tertiary Recycled Fuels (TRF), before

commenting on conveying and burning systems for

handling such fuels.

Refreshments were taken in the coffee lounge, where

a central check-in had been arranged for those

staying overnight.

Blastfurnace slag

The third session addressed the new ggbs terminals

developed by Ecocem and Francis Flower over the

past 13 months. First was Steve Handscomb who

explained the commercial and logistical reasons for

Francis Flower’s decision to commission a new 3,000t

silo at Runcorn. Built by SN Engineering of Gloucester

alongside an existing set of six small silos and two

loading bridges, this new steel silo has doubled

storage capacity and enabled a wider range of ships

to service the terminal. Removing the previous

bottlenecks has allowed a more even distribution of

product to the booming North West market.

Just seven months into the job as Ecocem’s General

Manager for Ireland & the UK, Micheál McKittrick

took time to trace the development of his company

over the past 15 years, identifying phases of rapid

growth before the recession; product innovation and

market diversification during the lean years; and

international expansion since the recovery. He

described Ecocem’s move into the UK with terminals

at Runcorn, Sheerness and another at Runcorn, and

commented on the major investment in production

capacity currently being undertaken at Dunkirk. He

referred to the trans-located silo recently installed at

Gävle in Sweden and hoped for a successful planning

application to develop a new site in Vallejo,

California. For rival businesses alongside each other

in Runcorn, it was pleasing to see an Ecocem vessel

appear in Steve’s slides, and to hear Micheál

acknowledge Ecocem’s reliance on a Francis Flower

pipeline during recent repair work to the dock wall.

Security and Logistics

Starting the final session of the day was Paul Hingley

of Siemens, with a startling exposition of the speed of

change in automation and the rapid extension of the

‘internet of things’, and a rather stark warning of

manufacturing industry’s increasing vulnerability to

security breaches. He mentioned a number of high-

profile cyber attacks, and hacking software that is

easily accessible on eBay, and also gave examples of

such attacks, or of lax security, from his personal

experience. He emphasised the legal responsibility

for security of those signing off the installation of

equipment, but indicated possible measures to

enhance security along with Siemens’ own work in

this area.

Moving from twenty first century technology to –

using his own description – that of the nineteenth

century, Ben Garner concluded the session with a

look at the cement industry’s increasing use of the

railways for the haulage of material. (Signalling, for

instances, still relies on whistles and manual levers,

and is seldom more modern than the technology of

the 1960s.) As Rail Implementation & Contracts

Manager for Tarmac, the talk focussed on his own

company’s operations, but reflected a wider trend in

the cement and mineral products industry. The

benefits of reduced lorry movements, economy of

fuel are standard, as are the challenges of securing

land for freight, and of devising economic and

permissible ‘last mile’ solutions to delivery. Ben

described recent investment in trackside handling at

Aberthaw and Tunstead (like Dunbar these have been

rail-connected for over a century) and in new and

improved rolling stock to maximise efficiency. With

several questions and comments from the audience,

the afternoon session ended on a positive note.

CISF Annual Dinner

The evening was spent in the Nestfield Suite, with its

distinctive brickwork colonnade overlooking the

formal gardens. Pre-prandial drinks were courtesy of

Global Cement, and Peter Edwards, the magazine’s

editor (and a magician in his spare time), amused and

bemused informal clusters of delegates with card

tricks and sleight of hand (see below).

Others, meanwhile, stepped through the colonnade

to enjoy the terrace garden and the grounds beyond.

Dinner was served at 8.00, for which smoked

mackerel with mustard potatoes, was followed by a

terrine of braised beef with parsnip, kale and

creamed potatoes. Once the crème brûlée and

shortbread had been served, the WCA business card

draw took place and Norman Greig presented the

winner – Paul Fletcher of CEMEX – with a magnum of

champagne.

Guest speaker Mike Connell – formerly Hanson

Cement’s National Quality Manager – rose to his feet

over coffee, and reminisced in personal vein about

his early career on site and at Harry Stanger’s

materials testing consultancy.

He touched on a number of broader technical issues

that had affected the industry during his subsequent

career with Civil & Marine, and later with Hanson,

and concluded by recommending an active

involvement with professional bodies such as The

Concrete Society and Institute of Concrete

Technology. With warm applause the dinner

concluded and delegates made their way to the bar

for the remainder of the evening.

Day 2

In a thoughtful presentation Colum McCague,

Technical Manager of MPA Cement, opened Day 2 by

outlining the various cement types being developed

as low-CO2 alternatives to Portland cement, those

that offer the advantages of reduced calcium

contents and lower production temperatures.

He noted the chemical composition of each on a tri-

plot diagram within axes indicating calcium, silica and

alumina intensity. Calcium aluminate and

sulfoaluminate cements were considered, along with

alkali-activated slags and geopolymer cements,

though, for reasons of raw material availability,

magnesium cements fell outside the scope of this

presentation. He indicated the lower treatment

temperatures required, the relative reliance on

alternatives to limestone, but also picked out the

problems associated with each. Colum concluded

that the cement industry would do well to keep

abreast of developments and adopt such cements for

specific applications, but that there was little chance

of a widespread replacement of Portland cement for

general use in the foreseeable future. A salutary slide

was one that showed that the carbon intensity of

composite cements was often equivalent to that of

the specialist ‘green’ cements.

Miri Zlatnar, Sales Director of Coomtech Ltd, was in

the enviable position of having something genuinely

innovative to present. Her company has developed a

non-thermal drying technology for materials such as

coal and ash, from first principles – inspired, strange

to say, by the experience of using a broken hand drier

in a public toilet! She explained the moisture-

shearing technology behind the company’s approach,

and drew attention to a pilot plant at Greenwich

University’s Wolfson Centre, before setting out

Coomtech’s licensing arrangements for new

undertakings.

After a final break for coffee, and to ensure all had

checked-out, Edwin explained that the scheduled

presentation would have to be deferred to another

time as the engineer had been posted to Australia on

urgent business for the week. He invited Fairport

Engineering to draw business cards for the four prizes

they had on offer, and Kathy Calverley to say a few

words about the Evolving Concrete event due in

October, before outlining the activities of the CISF.

To illustrate he showed some photographs of the

CISF visit to Rugby cement plant in September,

encouraging additional comments from the floor.

CISF visit to Rugby Works

Nick Sutherland, due to speak next, also offered

some impromptu photographs of a converted

Spanish cement works that is now an architect’s

home.

Nick, representing Solex Thermal Science, then went

on to introduce his company’s gravity-fed cooling

technology and explain – with the aid of video – the

principles on which it operated. He then presented a

case study of its application in a cement user’s

factory in France where the temperature of cement

delivered to the works was important to the

operation. Final commissioning was due to take

place the following week, so Nick promised to

complete the story next time.

The final speaker was Peter Wilson, Technical

Director of the Noise & Vibration Centre in Slough,

with a lively presentation on improving fan efficiency

and the reduction of associated noise. He explained

that rather than relying on retrofitting silencers or

other mitigating measures, his firm have gone back to

first principles, designing inserts to alter the

aerodynamics and thereby improving efficiency and

reducing noise. This approach offers considerable

savings compared with silencers and traditional noise

abatement techniques. Indeed so efficient was it on

one occasion that the client suspected that not

enough work had been done to justify the contract

and so (remarkably) placebo silencers were installed

to prompt payment! Peter ran through several

examples of huge savings in capital expenditure,

running costs and installation time, illustrating each

with before and after recordings of noise reduction.

He explained that remote assessment was now

possible by smart phone app, obviating the need to

travel in most instances. The technology is not

cement-specific – he gave a bizarre example of water

cannons in Australia, discharging surplus water into

the air to facilitate evaporation – but it is highly

applicable wherever fans are used and is now

increasingly adopted by the industry.

The meeting drew to a close and delegates dispersed

after lunch with comments such as: “a really good

event”; “a very professional and successful

conference … some excellent speakers” and “the

venue was excellent”.

Edwin A.R. Trout

Secretary, Cement Industry Suppliers’ Forum

Photographs:

Sarah Gerrard, The Concrete Society