Lafarge told to suspend operations in Slovenia over enviro permits

Slovenian producer Lafarge Cement said on Wednesday that the country’s environment inspectorate has ordered the plant to suspend operations for lacking environmental permits.

The inspectorate acted following a recent decision of the European Commission to refer Slovenia to the European Court of Justice for failing to issue an industrial permit to a major cement factory. The Commission is also asking for fines to be imposed.

Lafarge Cement said in a statement on its website it will respect the decision and shut down the kiln on Thursday but would lodge a complaint with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning.

Lafarge Cement said that in the process of obtaining the required licences it operated in accordance with all relevant environmental standards and that numerous studies show that the plant does not have a major impact on local air quality.

It also stressed that it invested more than EUR33m in modernisation over the past 13 years since it became part of parent company Lafarge.

Located in central Slovenia, the Trbovlje works of Lafarge Cement is 70 per cent owned by Lafarge Perlmooser. It has a 0.45Mta clinker capacity and 0.6Mta cement capacity. Its market share is around 38 per cent.