Business Almaty 2012

Nikolay Tarashenko, deputy to the general director of the journal “Russian Federation Today” touched upon the need for communication between the cement industry and the legislative powers to highlight and remedy the challenges ahead.

Cement market in Kazakhstan

HeidelbergCement's Roman Kempe focussed

on the development of the German cement

producer in Central Asia

After outlining the company’s worldwide operations, Roman Kempe, general manager of HeidelbergCement in Kazakhstan, focussed on the German cement giant’s development and perspectives in Central Asia. The firm acquired the Bukhtarma Cement works in 2005-06. Today, it is building a new 0.8Mta works in Shetpe, near Aktau, expected to come online in late 2013. The plant will be the first in the west of the country and is expected to capitalise on cement demand in the Caspian Sea area.

He went on to explain that while the Kazakh market contracted significantly in 2009 from 5.55Mt to 4.94Mt, the past few years have seen signs of recovery to 6.22Mt last year. For 2012, he expects demand to surpass the 7Mt mark, rising further to 8.1Mt by 2015.

Joachim Pohlmann, general director of United Cement Group (Kazakhstan), also characterised the local market as one showing strong signs of upturn and with a healthy potential as the per capita cement consumption by its 80m people remains low at 457kg. Further market strengths are the country’s relative political stability and its landlocked position which favours high prices.

Supplying equipment and training

German equipment manufacturers were well represented and Alexander Heinrich of Haver & Boecker Holding GmbH (Russia) led their contributions by presenting his company’s 125-year development through four generations. Its machines are designed for durability, exemplified by the oldest machine currently in operation, which dates from 1928. Today, the company has subsidiaries throughout the world, including Haver & Boecker in Russia, and employs around 2700 staff. “Around 10m bags per hour are presently made by Haver & Boecker’s packing equipment installed across the world,” according to Mr Heinrich.

Joachim Pohlmann of United Cement

Group highlighted the potential of the

Kazakh cement market

After introducing Germany’s VDZ to the predominantly Kazakh and Russian audience, Martin Schneider of VDZ highlighted the important role of dedicated training and education. The company recently premiered the Russian version of its Simulex training simulator programme at HeidelbergCement’s new Tula works.
IBAU Hamburg’s Evgeny Schamajew offered examples of practical experience and technology by the company for building specialised storage and mixing terminals, including suitable loading and unloading solutions. Subsequently, Alexander Heinrich of Haver & Boecker took visitors on a tour of Salavat’s Cement new terminal.

After Andrey Adamenko of FLSmidth (Russia) offered his take on the possibilities to modernise the burning department, the conference broke for lunch and it was Eduard Meier of FLSmidth Pfister who picked up the tale again, explaining the company’s dosing technology in the form of rotor weighfeeders. Dmitry Braizew of Aumund, Germany, presented his company’s long history and expertise in conveying, particularly in Russia, the CIS countries and of course, Kazakhstan, while Wei Liu of LONRAN (China) shared his experience of constructing cement plants with Chinese technologies and equipment. After briefly introducing the companies she represents via Russia’s Incontrade (eg, Inteca, HGH, Scantech, Enexco, TCDRI and Bedeschi), Svetlana Tarasova presented Gebr Pfeiffer’s contribution to cement plant construction in terms of mills and separators. She highlighted the achievements of Gebr Pfeiffer’s vertical roller mill, particularly in terms of higher output and easier maintenance and repair. The afternoon was further spent learning more about refractory materials, courtesy of Andrey Spitsin of Höganas Bjuf AB (Sweden) and Vladislav Korneev of RHI-Vostok (Russia), before guests rounded off their day by enjoying the Eighth International Tournament of Bowling.

The following morning started with Beumer’s presentation on “Technology in motion”, delivered by Alexander Ordinartse. He took the visitors through a number of the firm’s conveyor projects, and explained the challenges the company faced. Alex Wagner of Unitherm CemCon (Austria) informed delegates about MAS burners while Ugras Akay of Turkey’s DAL Engineering Group advised the audience the benefits of Føns Technology International’s modular cooler. Next up was Andrey Ermakov of MK Vselug (Russia) who presented his company’s cement packing equipment, offering both bagging and bulk solutions.

BusinessCem offers platform for industry dialogue
ICR spoke with Evgeny Valyukov, general director of conference organiser BusinessCem and head of the international relations development committee of Russia’s cement association Soyuzcement, about the BusinessCem’s conferences and its role in helping develop the industry in Kazakhstan.
ICR: What would you consider the main achievements of BusinessCem in organising conferences here in Almaty? Evgeny Valyukov (EV): This is our fifth Almaty conference and exhibition, an event we organise every two years. We aim to play a key part in helping the industry to determine the right direction in which to develop. BusinessCem Almaty offers a platform that brings leading Kazakh cement producers together with international equipment suppliers so they can solve the industry’s modernisation issues. We actively bring equipment suppliers to the conference as they provide an important input in modernising the Kazakh cement industry. Furthermore, we also invite representatives from the construction world such as the Association of Builders of Kazakhstan and representatives of the government such as the Almaty Akimat to enter a dialogue with the cement industry as we consider this link very important. A further highlight of this year’s conference is the agreement between cement producers to establish a Kazakh cement association. From our Russian point-of-view, we also believe the time is right and BusinessCem and Soyuzcement, the Russian cement association, fully support the creation of this association.   ICR: What changes have you seen in Kazakhstan and the wider Central Asian context since the first Almaty conference? EV: We organised our first conference here in 2001. BusinessCem was invited by Bukhtarma Cement, following conferences in countries such as Ukraine and Uzbekistan, to organise similar events here. We experienced many challenges but with help of local colleagues, were successful in overcoming these. HeidelbergCement as co-organiser of the event has been an important ally. As far as the setting, Almaty, concerns, the city has seen many changes and continues to develop. This year saw the completion of the first seven metro stations, the well-known Medeu skating rink was also modernised as were various sports facilities. Furthermore, construction has been expanding in other areas, not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. For the cement industry this has been good news, but to compete successfully with increasing imports, the industry needs to modernise and this, of course, requires investment.  ICR: Looking ahead, what can delegates expect from your upcoming Moscow meeting? EV: As regards the upcoming Moscow meeting on 22-24 April, delegates can expect a review of this year’s developments and the improved situation since the global financial crisis. Russia’s cement market is forecast to grow, particularly due to housing construction. Last year, around 57.4Mt of cement was sold in Russia and the industry’s output totalled 56.1Mt. As the market grows, the industry is expected to expand, building capacity to 125Mta by 2015. Soyuzcement, as a non-commercial producers’ association, intends to play a key role in finding solutions in terms of a number of issues – eg alternative fuels – that currently occupy the industry. To this effect, the organisation conducts an open dialogue and cooperates with other cement associations such as Germany’s VDZ, the Arab Union of Construction Materials and UkrCement in Ukraine. ICR: How do you view the future development of BusinessCem? EV: We look forward to expanding our conference programme, not only in terms of cement conferences but also in relation to the construction market. Over the past three years we have organised our Stroycem conferences in St Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Tashkent. These have been geared to bringing different players together from the building industry according to a similar format as our BusinessCem conferences. And of course, we would like to continue our working partnership with International Cement Review.

Attention then turned to mining and quarrying as Alexander Gornostayev of Wirtgen Kazakhstan highlighted his experience of blasting-free mining technology with the Wirtgen Surface Miner in Russia’s cement industry.

The importance of emissions was underscored by Andreas Renetzeder of Scheuch (Austria) during his presentation “World’s first 10m filterbag – EMC technology from Scheuch” while Oleg Dorokhin of Alstom Power Stavan (Russia) explained the benefits of the new FTA electrofilter. A brief return to refractory technology was made by Andrey Spitsin of Bricking Solutions (USA) before Igor Zlobin of Loesche, Germany, presented the company’s grinding technology. The morning’s sessions were completed by Eduard Tsarenko of Vibro M, Russia, introducing his firm as “Modern decisions for modern production”. Nikolay Schetinin of Christian Pfeiffer emphasised the German company’s drive to enable its clients to save energy.

After time given to a traditional tree planting, guests were then invited to the evening’s gala dinner to round off their Almaty conference experience.

Exhibition

Apart from the warm hospitality extended in the evening events and day excursions in the Almaty area, BusinessCem’s conference was also supplemented by an exhibition, which offered the opportunity for the local cement industry to exchange views with not only Russia’s MC Vselug and Vibro M but also international equipment manufacturers such as Haver & Boecker, IBAU Hamburg, Dal Engineering Group, Möllers, Feldbinder and A TEC Greco.

The exhibition offered delegates the opportunity to find out more about modernising the Kazakh cement industry

Looking forward

BusinessCem is currently organising its 23rd International Conference and Exhibition “The Cement Industry and the Market”, which will take place in Moscow, Russia, on 22-24 April 2013. For more information, visit BusinessCem.