Lafarge Ciments opens EUR20m slag grinding plant in Western France

Lafarge Ciments opens EUR20m slag grinding plant in Western France
20 March 2007


Lafarge Ciments, the French unit of Lafarge SA, has invested EUR20m (US$26.6m) to open a slag grinding mill in Bassens, western France.  
 
The plant will granulate slag, a by-product of the metallurgic industry used to improve cement strength. The facility stands on a 8.5ha plot near the port of Bordeaux and has a capacity to process 300,000tpa of slag.  
 
The material will be shipped from Dunkirk, northern France, treated at the Bassens site and transported by train to  Lafarge’s cement facility in Martres Tolosane, southwestern France.  
 
According to Lafarge, the Bassens plant logistics and integrated processes will reduce CO2 emissions by 250,000tpa. The plant, whose construction started in September 2005 and was completed in January 2007, is expected to produce 200,000t of granulated and dried slag in 2007.  
 
Lafarge invested EUR150m over the last two years to modernise and develop its industrial infrastructure in France. Two similar projects for slag grinding mills in the ports of Sete and Fos-sur-Mer, southern France, are being studied at present.  
Published under Cement News