Economy & Market

Certainty of growth still not in sight despite boom

Published

8 years ago

June 30, 2018

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Makarand Marathe, Director, Cement Division, Thyssenkrupp Industries India (tkII)

Makarand Marathe, Director, Cement Division, Thyssenkrupp Industries India (tkII) believes that even as India’s demand for cement shows signs of gradual recovery, equipment makers need to prepare themselves to engage with an increasingly discerning customer.

What are some of your most recent areas of focus?
Primarily, what we can offer to the industry, the entire gamut of pyro processing and grinding technology. Now, in terms of pyro processing, apart from new generation Preheater, and Cooler, we can talk about the and Waste Heat Recovery system. As far as grinding is concerned, we have a well proven high pressure grinding roll for raw material grinding in "finish mode". We can also offer competitive, energy efficient, "semi-finish" operating circuits. These are some of the areas that we are focusing on right now. As far as the most recent trends in cement are concerned, if you take grinding, people are no longer looking at Blaine or 7 to 20 days’ strength. They are looking at early strength generation and residues on 45 microns. This is something that can be achieved through innovative circuits and new separators that we have launched. Finally, it is about creating value for the customer who is examining different options to penetrate the market and we have to support him.
Any innovative products in the pipeline for 2018?
We have come out with a roller driven vertical mill, which has already been installed in a number of plants worldwide. It’s the new generation QUADROPOL series roller mill. This is a new product and when you talk of high Blaine cements, especially when you talk of 3,800 plus kind of Blaine, this is the product that we wish to offer. But I must admit it is not immediately on the cards. However, it will be one of the options to offer to the Indian customer by end 2018. Presently, we are working on the cost economics and we are hopeful that we can offer a product which will be affordable as the Indian clientele is very discerning and likes to evaluate the return on investment.
How much of your R&D is in India?
Most of our R&D activities are centralised in Germany since we already have a huge set-up there. In India, we have a small facility catering to our other verticals.
As we speak, do you perceive any paradigm shifts taking place in the cement business?
The cement business in India needs some stabilisation because already huge capacity addition had taken place during the 1990s and 2000s. So, all that capacity needs to be used up. Today the industry is running at about 65-70 per cent of its utilisation. And even if you take about 6 to 7 per cent growth in GDP and 8 to 10 per cent in the cement demand, it will still take about three years to catch up with the installed capacity.

Even if you take the utilisation up to 90 to 95 per cent, we still have two to three years to go. It’s only thereafter that the push for new investments will come in. Of course, this is the economist’s view. But if you look at the economic reality, large cement manufacturers who have the financial muscle to make investments and acquisitions, will scout for new projects because they will get the best bargains from suppliers. They will be ready for the boom time in two to three years because a cement project takes about 24 months to be completed. So, I don’t see any big shift in terms of business generation, but definitely the growth will be solid. Since the government is the biggest spender as far as cement is concerned, it has announced plans for road construction, housing, etc. Therefore, this 8 to 10 per cent demand for cement is expected to sustain. The market will not move into the boom mode yet but there will surely be growth.

And how is technology redefining the contours of the business?
Digitalisation has come into the cement business. Discussions with some of our customers have revealed the change in attitudes in the business. Fifteen years ago, with everything being done manually, nobody spoke about laboratory automation. Now everything has changed and people are looking at robotised lab as a significantly important option to have in a plant. Take Wonder Cement for instance. The company demands a premium in the market because it has lab automation in place, which helps it monitor parameters, mineralogical phases, physical properties and cement quality. This view and vision has definitely come in and is going to stay. Even if it is adding some additional cost per bag, manufacturers are demanding that additional premium and getting it.
So, where do you see things headed in the near and the medium term?
We will surely pursue projects but we also have to come up with something innovative. We have to address the environmental issues in terms of SOx and NOx emissions. There have to be new alternate fuels to be tried and we have to come out with solutions where more and more alternate fuels can be used as our substitution rate has to go up. At 5-10 per cent, India has one of the poorest substitution rates in the world. That has to increase up to 15-20 per cent and machinery manufacturers have to come out with solutions. This is something that we have to address. So, I would say that the business will definitely grow and there will be more innovative options available. Clients too would be asking questions in terms of energy efficiency and product quality.

MANISH PANT

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

3 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.