Pioneering calcined clay production in Oman – Dr Hilal Saif Al Dhamri, Middle East Calcined Clay

Thank you everybody and for the organizer to give me the chance to be here in Saudi Arabia. It is my pleasure, and it's really a long way in the cement sector. We have experienced a lot of changes. And lately, we decide after all this happening in the cement industry, we decide, me and my partner, to take this, I would say, risk on pioneering the new era of the cement. And we established this calcined clay factory in Oman. After about, I would say, four years of study. Start from the raw material, doing a lot of tests, exploring the clays in Oman and in the region, sending a lot of samples away to Europe, to Cuba, to Professor Fernando. Yeah. Well known in calcined clay.

And then we partnership with Kaolin group in South Africa to do this factory. When we partnership with them, the owner in South Africa, I will only participate with 10% maximum. And so I have to find out the 90%. It was really a very difficult situation where to some point I was thinking to drop this project. However, when he traveled to Oman and he looked into our facilities and mostly he impressive about our experience, me and my partner, on the technical part. We know that we have good experience on the material itself, the chemistry of the material. He increased his percentage to 40%, and we start that journey together. And today the plant is commissioned. It's under commissioning.

We produced the first calcined clay. There is another driver, I will go into that story inside my presentation, of that driver make this project successful, especially in Oman. And you have the same situation I saw it here in Saudi Arabia. So if we look into Oman. Oman as a country here in the region, they put a strategy for net zero by 2050 and they enhance the industry to work out through that to achieve the net zero by 2050. Of course, the cement industry construction is one of the pillar where the government is focused on that.

So we took this initiative to communicate our project to the government and be a partner with us to push it and make it really a project that will help to achieve this strategy. The government is focusing Oman to utilize more on raw materials, creating more jobs for the locals, bring technology and knowhow from abroad to Oman and improve their construction because the construction in Oman is taking a high value in the economy. And we came by these three products produced by Middle East. The first one, everybody when they hear about our factory, they think that we are producing LC3. We don't produce LC3, the final product known as cement, LC3. We produce LC2, one step before we make it cement.

And that LC2 with the calcined clay, high performance calcine two, we call it HPC2. These two products, actually, it goes directly into the ready mix. And this is because Oman is one of the importer for SCMs like GGBS and fly ash, used very widely in the construction, but it doesn't exist in Oman. So they import those materials to Oman. Those two materials are replacing those imported material. This is one of the reason successful of this project. Now, the Omani Saruj is another product. Omani Saruj is innovation by Ministry of Heritage. It's connected to the history of Oman where all the old buildings, forts. If anybody visit Oman you can see the history in our mountains, in our villages.

They built those buildings with Omani Saruj. And it is simply burning the clay, using the palm trees to sometime between 30 to 50 days, keeping burning and burning by the mean of traditional burning on a farm and to burn the clay. And then they grind the clay manually, and they mix it with water, and they build the buildings. And some buildings are more than 200 years, still standing with that type of material in Oman. However, recently because of weather and many factors, those buildings becoming now need some maintenance, restoration. There are few buildings shall collapse.

And as per the Omani code of buildings and also internationally, when you restore any building, you have to use the same material. This is from the concept of restoring history buildings. Another reason is using another material is very difficult. There are some trials in Oman. They mix the old Omani Saruj with cement and it doesn't work. After some time there are some cracks because of some chemistry behind that. The major problem is the quantity of Omani Saruj by traditional way is very limited. As I say, 50 days to produce only five truck. And there is a lot of demand of it. So Ministry of Heritage goes into research.

I was part of that research to manufacture the Omani Saruj in modern and on a quantity that can meet the demand of restoring the old buildings. So we came to this product and we cooperate with the Ministry and we are now owning the brand. The brand owned by Ministry, but we have agreement for five years with Middle East to produce this product. Now, the link between the Omani Sarooj and calcined clay is the beginning is the same. The start of making the calcined clay and the process is similar. And that the formula after producing the calcined clay on the addition, there it will differ. It will go to LC2, the C2, and other products. Coming back to the LC2.

Here, this is well known in the cement industry now for LC3. So this circle is the LC3, where 50%, let's say, it is cement. And the rest here is the calcined clay, 30%. We have 15% limestone and 5% gypsum. LC2, simply it is the left side, where it doesn't consist any clinker or cement. And this product go direct to mix to replace the fly ash or GGPS. It has a good performance. Unfortunately, I didn't put any data here about the performance of ready-mix concrete. But I'm happy if anybody is interested to share that results. We made a lot of testing with the ready mix in Oman, including Holcim, many big ready mix.

The C2, the calcined clay itself, if you grind it, and we call it high-performance calcined clay. It can replace the silica fume. There are some concrete using silica fume, where they need some durability, high durability. And you can see our calcined clay have some advantage from the silica fume, where it is expensive, very high price, and imported from outside. You can imagine now if it is produced in Oman locally and replace the silica fume. Going back to the Sarooj. This is the brand, which is owned by Ministry, and we invest on it, and we are producing the Sarooj in paper bag as the cement. In 10kg, it's a small bag. No cement required, no any other additives.

You just simply use it like the cement. You mix it with the sand, water, and then it starts hardening and go into a process, the same process as the cement is solidified. Also, we introduce the Omani Sarooj into the new buildings, the modern buildings. We can use it as a replacement of cement plaster. The beauty of this, you don't need the paint. You don't need any other treatment. And you have just to consider it as interior design. We have applied in our admin building, in our factory, outside and inside, to show our customer how beauty is Omani Sarooj. It has a lot of advantage when you compare it with the cement. This is the process. It's very simple.

Calcined clay, after the kiln processing, we mix with it the limestone, and there are some additives. We produce the LC2, C2, calcined clay, and the Omani Sarooj. Of course, the color is very important. Everybody is concerned about the color. Most question, 80% of the question about calcined clay is the color. And I think Mr. Peter has explained this a lot on his presentation. Thank you for that. Omani Sarooj also has a concern with the color. This is reddish color. Some people, they want it, and some other, they don't want it. But in Omani heritage, in the forts, if you look at it, they all have different colors.

And this is make to us really a challenge to meet the colors of different region in Oman. For that reason, we now doing some test to change the color, but we are not allowed to use chemicals. We have to use natural material to control the color. This is the plant. It's generated pictures, but in reality, sorry, I think the real one. But the plant is similar to this. And all these floors in our admin buildings are made of calcined clay with the waste byproducts. This is the innovation, which we brought it from South Africa. The floors are contained of calcined clay, marble waste as aggregate, cloth fibers, and shredded plastic, and shredded and broken glasses.

We mix it together, and we make all the floor of the admin. Something impressive. I think some of you, they visit us in December. Yeah, he saw and he walk on it. It's a high-end finishing. It can be used even in a five-star buildings. I hope you can visit us and see it because we will promote this after we stabilize our factory. We will go into that business. The wall here is also covered by the Omani Sarooj as the interior design. The company is a structure. Myself is the CEO, and I have Abdulaziz Mokbali is the general manager. He's my partner. He's supposed to be with me here, but unfortunately, he has some other arrangement in Oman. And also, this is the boards. Myself in the board, Mr.

Roger, board chairman, and some guys from South Africa with us. So we try to meet the Oman vision, net zero. Also, we create another three divisions, company, owned by Middle East. Those companies, Mazoon Green Cement, will produce now the LC3. It will come to the market very short. Now we are finalizing the grinding unit. And it will take the calcined clay from the MECC to Mazoon Green Cement, 50% clinker, and then it will do and produce the LC3 cement. Suhara Sustainability and Raw Materials.

We established this company on 20,000-meter square in Suhara to look into the waste or the byproducts from the industry because they have a value and they are going to the landfill, or they are negligent from the industry. So we will take those materials, especially marble waste. It has a lot of value, and we convert it to raw material. 50% of the output of this company, it will go for those companies, and 50% will supply to the other industry in Suhara. Mazoon Lab is supporting, is the pillar of this innovation, where we have to rely on testing, analysis, trials, and make a lot of research to understand the reaction and the chemical composition of the materials, which will never stop.

It will continue as we are producing. This is our partner, Roger. We are holding him. He's from KGI, Kaolin Group in South Africa. And with me, Abdulaziz Mokbali. We are establishing this company. Thank you very much.