LafargeHolcim Sagunto to return to full operation

LafargeHolcim’s Sagunto works in Spain will return to full operation for the first time since 2007. Following a year of uncertainty about the future of the cement plant due to issues in renewing its quarry licence, the news is particularly welcome to the staff of the 2.3Mta facility.

Reasons cited for the step are two-fold. The economic recovery and resurgence of construction in Valencia and Castellón will enable the company to recover domestic margins following three years of exports and product diversification, according to Miguel Ángel Urbano, Sagunto’s plant director.

In addition, the special alkaline cement produced by the plant is mandatory to use in Paris, where the low temperatures of the subsoil turns normal cement into a kind of gel. Sagunto plans to produce 0.25Mt of the product.

In 2017 the plant had planned to operate at 50 per cent, partly due to the Algerian import ban, but the director said actual output had been at 74 per cent of capacity. The agreement that enables the continuation of activities at the company’s Salt de Llop quarry has facilitated the increase in output. "This gives stability and security to the plant for the next few years," said the executive, who specified that it will be the plant with the highest production of Lafarge's five in Spain in 2018. The next licence to be renewed is the authorisation of autonomic environmental impact, within seven years.

Given the new lease of life, the plant will invest EUR4m in a new control and command system with an additional EUR2m to renew other equipment.