Energy minister visits Dunbar cement plant

Paul Wheelhouse, Scottish Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy has taken a closer look at energy use in industry, through a visit to Tarmac’s Dunbar Plant, the only cement manufacturing site in Scotland.

The visit enabled the Minister to get a closer look at a business that produces essential building products for use across Scotland, at a time when the Scottish Government is actively developing its future energy strategy.

Tarmac’s Dunbar Plant Manager Oliver Curtin added: “We were delighted to welcome the Minister to this site and share our experience with the Scottish Government at this important point in the policy development process.

“Tarmac is continually looking for ways to manage energy use to minimise our impact on the environment, reduce our carbon footprint and to help with our overall costs. As we walked the Minister through the cement-making process, we were very pleased to update him on various aspects of energy use in our process. This included our increasing use of waste-derived fuels such as scrap tyre chips - one of the ways in which we reduce our reliance on fossil-fuel based energy.”

Scottish Government Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, Paul Wheelhouse, said: “Tarmac’s Dunbar operation – Scotland’s only cement factory – has a significant role in Scotland’s manufacturing industry, which makes it an important player in the wider Scottish economy. It’s an industry which the Scottish Government is keen to support, as demonstrated by our launch of the Manufacturing Action Plan.

“Of course, cement is also an essential resource to our construction industry, but established techniques for producing it can be carbon-intensive. It’s encouraging then to see that Tarmac are keen to try to make that production as low carbon as possible, with the support of the Scottish Government, and today's visit helped build our understanding of how we might be able to best assist innovation.

“We’re currently in the process of finalising a new Energy Strategy for Scotland, which we will publish by the end of 2017, and this will underpin Scotland’s transition to a low carbon economy. Companies like Tarmac are essential to informing what that strategy will look like, and they represent a good example of an organisation taking positive steps towards improving their energy and resource efficiency.”