Materials & quality: 30 years on
The development of new cement types and demands on fuels as well as changes in process requirements have led to key changes in cement production over the last three decades. New raw materials and alternative fuels have given rise to new cement standards.
Alternative raw materials increasingly reduce the need for virgin materials
The cement Industry in 2018 has been through a long period of soul searching and reorganisation which has involved multiple changes in ownership and adjustments in relationships with suppliers and customers. The industry today is largely vertically integrated, selling to concrete producers that are part of the same company and often being supplied with fuels at least partly produced in-house. In the 1980s vertical integration was not considered to be economically viable and in the USA, efforts were made to prohibit it.1 In 2018 the world market is dominated by a few very large companies producing cement and operating concrete plants.
