WINNING
O
ver the past nine decades, the global
demand for cement has increased
50-fold, from 100 million tonnes in
1926 to around five billion tonnes
in 2016, with the majority of this demand being
from China (56%, or 2.8 billion tonnes). In
comparison, estimated cement demand in Africa
in 2016 was 240 million tonnes (4.8% of global
demand), with South Africa accounting for 5.4%
of that amount (13 million tonnes).
However, according to AfriSam sales and
marketing executive Richard Tomes, there
is currently a massive oversupply of cement
globally. Declining global cement demand has
resulted in worsening capacity utilisation, lower
EBITDA margins, and increased mergers and
acquisitions (M&A) activity in the sector. Over
the past five years, there has been notable M&A
activity in China, India, Europe, Latin America
and, to a lesser extent, in Africa. Tomes described
the situation as being “pretty dire”, saying
that there is a definite need for some form of
consolidation in the market.
AfriSam’s Ulco cement plant, situated
about 80km outside of Kimberley, is one of the
company’s two fully integrated South African
cement plants. “Our on-site operations go
right from the quarrying of limestone and
shale through to raw materials preparation,
manufacturing clinker, manufacturing cement,
and then packing and dispatching to the
customer,” explains cementitious executive
Hannes Meyer.
History
AfriSam’s Ulco cement plant started operations
in 1936 as the Union Lime Company, capitalising
on massive high-quality limestone deposits in
the area to produce high-quality industrial lime
for the gold industry, and later on to the steel
and ferrous industries. In the intervening 81
years, the plant has grown to become one of the
company’s largest cement factories, and one of
its two fully integrated plants located in South
Africa. In addition to an increase of one million
tonnes per year in production capacity — up
to 1 250 000 tonnes from 250 000 when it first
opened — the plant has undergone a number of
capacity and efficiency upgrades.
In 1949, 13 years after its establishment, the
first two cement kilns were established, with a
combined production capacity of 250 000 tpa.
Both were wet process kilns, which are highly
energy-intensive and inefficient in comparison
to today’s technology. In 1964, two larger, more
efficient kilns were built, increasing the plant’s
capacity to 350 000 tpa. However, these kilns
still made use of wet chemistry, which limited
production capacity and resulted in significant
energy consumption.
Twenty years later, in 1984, the current kiln —
Kiln 5, a pre-calciner dry process kiln — was built,
QUARRY SA | NOVEMBER 2017 _ 15