The ‘Kunda Nordic Tsement’ Board of Directors decided to stop the production of cement clinker at the cement plant in Kunda in northern Estonia. The reason for the decision is related to the increase in the cost of the CO2 emission quotas in the European Union, which should have a significant impact on the company's performance.
Clinker production is scheduled to cease in March. Cement production will continue.
The plant uses old technologies in clinker production, which leads to a high level of carbon emissions. As a result, continued production of clinker has become economically unprofitable, the company says.
“We have reached the limit. We need a new dry-process plant to reduce clinker costs and meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements, and due to the relatively small volume of production, such investments will not bring profit,” says Meelis Einstein, director of Kunda Nordic Tsement.
Clinker, necessary for the production of cement, will be shipped by sea. As a result, the company expects the carbon footprint at the production site in Kunda will be reduced by about 30%. Ceasing production of clinker will result in cutting approximately 80 employees.
Kunda Nordic Tsement is owned by one of the largest international cement holdings HeidelbergCement Group (75%) and the Irish cement holding CRH (25%). Kunda cement plant runs a wet-process production line with a design capacity of 1.2 million tpa.
HeidelbergCement adheres to a policy of gradual reduction of CO2 emissions in all regions of its presence.
