April 14-16, 2002. PETROCEM Conference

The second International PETROCEM Conference was held in St.Petersburg, Russia, on April 14-16, 2002. Among more than 130 participating companies from 26 countries people from SCG EKOLOGIA were attending. Our group uniting the efforts of leading experts in the industry for advanced processes, improvement of quality and competibility of cement plant products was represented by Mr Veniamin Bernshtein, Scientific Manager, and Mr Aleksandr Lizenko, Vice-Director on Economics (Fig.1).

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As anticipated, the Conderence as it was evident from majority of 36 reports and multiple exhibits was basically aimed at evaluation of prospects of Russia and CIS cement industry transition to energy-saving cement manufacturing processes. The report of SCG EKOLOGIA was also devoted to this problem. You can find it in Proceedings of the Conference and at our site. The necessity to dramatically reduce energy consumption of wet cement process which dominated in the former USSR is acknowledged by everybody. Still, no actual progress in this direction can be seen. We explain this by lack of appropriate tactics, in other words, lack of concept for gradual transition to low-energy processes. As a rule, questions of immediate move to dry or semi-dry process are being discussed. But this way is unreasonable due to high costs of such reconstruction and too long payback, which is reflected in the dynamics of cooperation between cement plants and manufacturers of cement equipment. As to use of single systems, in spite of their evident superiority over those operating at existing plants, it is negligible because high energy consumption at the plants eats up their anticipated efficiency. The analysis of presented reports indicates a complete absense of scientific developments aimed at guided change of raw materials for cement industry in assets of companies operating at our market, which may prove especially successful at Russian and Ukrainian cement plants possessing enormous reserves of waste raw materials. Our experience shows that this approach is able to produce not only short-term effect but form a basis for subsequent dramatic reduction of energy consumption and even gradual transition to dry process in certain cases. The concept proposed by SCG EKOLOGIA was shared not only by cement plant managers but by representatives of some leading world companies as well. Our participation in a meeting arranged during the conference with FL Smidth & Co A/S and managers of some Ukrainian cement plants (Fig.2) confirmed that our group had selected quite a correct approach. By further development of our concept we can become a connecting link between foreign companies and domestic cement plants.

New contacts and mutual interest in results of joint research as well as already signed contracts make our look ahead quite confident. In this plane it is difficult to overestimate the importance of PETROCEM-2. The faultlessly organized meeting between representatives of cement plants and foreign companies busy in manufacture of highly efficient equipment was an unquestionable success. Multiple contacts in unconstrained environment, getting acquainted with the latest achievements of world cement industry and existing condition of domestic plants allowed to define current events more precisely, outline urgent tasks and the most attarctive ways of their attainment.