I undestand that fuel price are 30% of the cement cost.
lalbatros
Theoretically, it is only sure that it is in the range [-Infinity,100%].
And even that is not sure, actually.
Negative costs not fuels-related could lead to a ratio larger than 100% !
So there is a wide range of possible cost ... and room for optimization.
I suggest you consider concrete examples.
Like a world average or a country-average, or a specific plant.
Also using fuels$ / tcement would be clearer.
You will easily find statistics on the GJ used per fuels, kilns ... .
Data on substitution rate and the like are widely published.
Unfortunately you will find it more difficult to find cost data.
Altough the costs depend on the substitution rate (alternative fuels),
it cannot be used to predict the actual costs.
The costs of alternative fuels is of course very much market dependent.
iltco
thank you for explanation.
lalbatros
As expected, Googling does not yield many data on fuel cost in cement.
However, this document contains some global data: http://www.ucd.ie/gpep/gpepinfo/06-10.pdf .
This document suggests a range for cement fuel cost from 5€/t to 10 €/t.
However this considers only Portland cement.
It is also not explicit about the use of alternative fuels. Therefore I can bet that is possible to find cement plants with fuels costs between 0 and 15 €/t, and probably an even larger range. I would be very curious to see the data for 2008.
I also found a document showing a substantial difference between Europe and Turkey (www.cementiritalia.it/filemanager/download/31/05_2003.pdf?PHPSESSID=943b82ce0b1fc6fde3b738906b427820 ). In addition, the variability of the other cost factors can be seen, which will increase even more the % cost ratio variability.
I also found here and there some hints that costs could be very different for countries like Egypt, Koweit, Pakistan, India, US or others simply due to different availabilities of conventional fuels. No need to comment further on what the differences could be when considering alternative fuels and/or different environmental policies.
As I said, without considering more specific cases like plant, country, type of kiln, world average, ... my best guest can only be a joke. Furthermore, the data are not easy to find in open sources.