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Sourcing, transport and use of fly ash and GGBFS in GCC countries: Jochen Pfitzner, Hawar Power Minerals (Qatar)

Filmed at Cemtech MEA 2015, 8-11 February, Grand Hyatt Dubai, UAE

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Thank you very much for introduction. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. In fact, there going to be some over lips in the presentation, but as Keith already pointed out its going to be much more operational, less strategic than Gavin's presentation. So, let me just present our company on the next one or two pages.

Hawar Power Minerals is basically sourcing industrial minerals from overseas mainly steel and power pumps. We supply these products to clients mainly readymades and pre [xx] companies in the Gulf region. We build complete supply chains, meaning we're building supply chains from the source, we are not buying from traders typically. But we would just take these materials from the source and take it to the end customer, while investing into our own facilities like transport facilities, storage and other.

We would also look after quality, we have agreement with our customers and our source and how to manage the quality of this product, and if necessary, we also would supply technical applications support. The company is still a relatively young company. We were founded back in 2013 in summer as Qatari/ German joint venture.

Quick look at our shareholders, there's a local shareholder of course in Qatar which is the Hawar Group, it's a family owned Qatari Holding company. They have interests in various industries, mainly energy, engineering, contracting as well as logistics. Our German shareholder on the right side is the company Steag.

Steag power mills. They are actually a power generating company that are operating qualified power plant in Europe, mainly Germany about 10, 000 Megawatts installed. They have a long time experience in this field for 40 years, they have been active round about 15 countries. And apart from generating power they're also into Associated services like, engineering, recycling and managing byproducts which makes the market leader for byproducts in Germany and possibly in Europe.

They're roughly handling about 4 million tonnes, mainly fly ash and gypsum. You might just seen this one before it was just quite tempting because it illustrates very well the use of cemententatious materials in history, and this example it is fly ash, on the left side you see the Pantheon which was built with lime and volcanic ash 1900 years ago.

It was finished After Christ 115, and on the right side, quit the opposite, a modern record breaking structure, the Burgh Khalifa, which was finished as we all know in 2009, also build with the help of fly ash and other cementatious materials. So what kind of materials do we find in the region of course, there's fly ash as we mentioned before, imported mainly from India.

It's from [xx] power stations as captured in the electrostatic filters and can be added either to concrete or cement. We have the natural pozzolans, this is volcanic ash, it's excavated in volcanic or ex-volcanic areas. There is also a little bit around in the region back in Saudi and the South of Saudi Arabia, we find some natural pozzolans.

There are Silica fumes coming in from China and European sources. These are products from electric arc furnaces. They are also kept from the fum gas that mostly intensified because they are quit challenging to transport. And last but not least of course, there is GBFS and GGBFS. It's from iron blast furnaces.

It's quenched with water and then granulated, and then it held either into cement as GBFS and co-ground or added to concrete as GGBFS material. There has been in the past, I noticed there has been some confusion about denomination, so that's why I brought this slide just what we understand slag GGBFS and GBFS.

On the left side we see a photo of liquid slack coming out of the blast furnace which is then quenched with water getting it product, reusing the product in the middle of the picture which is granulated slack after quenching on the [xx]. This material is ground, you get GGBFS ground granulated blast furnace slack. Having a look at the statistics of this materials, on the left side you see the different materials, OPC, GGBFS, Fly ash and Silica Fumes. They mainly differ in particle size and as well as CAO in lime and silicon oxide content while OPC and GGBFS are relatively large particles around 20 micron, fly ash is already quite a bit smaller with roughly 10 micron depending on quality, it ranges between 1 and 100 micron actuallym but mostly around 10 micron and silica fumes are even a lot smaller.

This of course thrives between other's strength development in concrete. Secondly, we've the lime content which tends to be pretty high in OPC and GGBFS, whereas in fly ash and silica fumes we typically find a higher SC 02 content. The way these materials react, OPC of course it depends on the way you grind it but normally it would be medium to fast in concrete GGBFS medium. It needs OPC to trigger the starter reaction, fly ash is relatively slow, needs calcium hydroxide. Silica fumes due to their size, they're very fast but they also need calcium hydroxides to start a reaction.

Gareth already mentioned the advantages of the materials in concrete, so I'm going to go through it pretty quickly. In liquid concrete especially fly ash that improves the workability, the concrete flow. [xx] I don't really agree with Gareth because he said that fly ash is very abrasive.

I think that GGBFS actually and GBFS is very abrasive and uses pumps. So, maybe we'll have to discuss that afterwards, Gareth. GGBFS and both materials, GGBFS and flash, will reduce the hydration heat in the concrete and therefore help you in mass force but also in this type of trimetical conditions.

Just a few pictures here showing where it really helps back into workability and the pumping and the form [xx] concrete with fly ash really nicely flow around the edges and corners in form work. Next one is hardend concrete and do concrete contributor of this materials is the better resistance against chemical attack and which is probably the most important advantage in this part of the world.

We are talking about sulfide resistance, chloride resistance, also as a silicap invention which is more important in Europe and tougher climates. Early strength GGBFS and GBFS typically shows quit an exceptional good early springs after seven days. That's a point that fly ash is a little slow, the reaction starts later and it's differed over time. Long term strength you will achieve with both materials, a better strength over time, 90 days plus then with pure OPC. Last but not least, we have the sustainability of this product also Gareth has already talked about it, you have less minerals extraction if you use these materials so you need to extract less limetone to produce clinker and especially of course it's the reduced CO2 emmission which will help reduce CO2. I was trying to say [xx] in Europe this is the case because you have to pay for certificates, over here in this country of course it has no direct commercial impact, This is just to illustrate a little bit again GGBFS and florishing capacity of OPC, CO2 emissions, you can see the pure OPC you will emit about 900 kilos per tonne of OPC produced, whereas if you use GGBFS it is only roughly 70 - 100 kilos fly ash zero.

The difference comes from the fact of course that GGCFS you have to burn it and then you use energy for the grinding. The energy consumption you have a similar picture, of course for OPC it's a lot higher than for GGBFS, fly ash also would be zero and as mentioned, the mineral extraction you would have nothing using these materials.

Now, I already mentioned that the main benefit in our opinion in this part of the world is durability of these materials. There are two factors basically who play on durability, one is environmental stress. Environmental stress, we have two main factors which is the concentration of aggressive agents in the all, in the ground water which tends to be pretty high in GCC countries, especially in Qatar where we are working.

Temperature of course, we all know that temperature will accelerate and intensify chemical reactions, so the higher the temperature the more you will experience environmental stress on these concrete structures. Average temperature in ground water in Qatar is between 28 and 30 degrees, I suppose it's the same over here comparison in Europe, we're talking about 12 degrees. On the other side, we have then of course the material resistance which is driven by mainly two factors as well which is first of all the concrete densities. The pores which will encourage or prevent chloride migration and secondly of course it's the thickness of the concrete layer which will protect the steel structure.

Of course there are physical and commercial limits to the concrete thickness so what we are really looking at now to optimise is the concrete density and that's where the advantage of cementious materials kick in. I brought here an example of a mix design, this one was designed by a German engineering consultant back in 2009. It was the pre-designs study for the Doha metro for the shell structure, we need a [xx] element. They basically, they had a choice of two mixed sign triple blends. So, on the left side in green there was mixed design based on GGBFS 65%, 30% of OPC and 5% of Silica fumes. The mixed designed [xx] was also triple blend but it was based on GGBFS, OPC and Fly ash with no micro silica. The result was in the end, Qatar [xx] opted from mixed design A which means that [xx] because everybody apparently copied from each other.

Most of the mix designs in Qatar for this type of structure now are based on GGBFS, OPC and Silicon Fuels. However, because supply quite a shortage now in this country of GGBFS, that's why consultants and project owners are considering diffreent designs as well. So, here is another one, a more recent one, that's one of our clients who offered to bid for the tendering of the water reservoir as in Qatar back in 2014. Also two different mixes design on based of Fly ash and GGBFS, a little bit different from the last one.

Total cementation material was 420 kilo gramms per cubic, OPC 260 kilos of the Fly ash makes plus about 30% of Fly ash plus Silica fumes and then alternatively a GGBFS mixed with almost 300 kilos, 70% of GGBFS together with OPC and micro silica in order to get your strength. So, this is still open we'll see what they decide for in the end, I think that by now this two mixes are equal in quality and equal in cost as well.

We worked it out, is about the same cost. I think that might be even a change to reduce the part of Silica fumes in the Fly ash mix if you use a very fine classified Fly ash. So price cost has always been an issue in this part of the world for integiuos materials. Over here the customers have to pay premiums for cementitious material compared to OPC. What I brought her is just a comparison, an index comparison for different countries, OPC would be 100% and you can see in comparison the price level of GGBMS and Fly Ash. I think that was a question you asked before. So in Qatar you can see clearly

we've got a 40% to 50% price premium compared to OPC. In case A, it's a pretty much the same picture. Over here in the UAE, GGBFS while still 20% more expensive. I didn't get any data for Fly ash in bulk, so the price you see for UAE is a price that was based on jumbo bags. If you convert that into bulk delivery, it would be probably you have to add another 10 or 15%.

So serious premium to be paid. Is that an issue? My answer would be no, because these materials really add value to cement and to concrete. It shouldn't be such of an issue that they are more expensive than OPC. Of course in Europe, we have a different picture because they were local sources, so I took the example of the UK.

OPC 100% and GGBFS slightly less expensive and Fly ash a lot less expensive in comprasion. That's while in Europe and how it was started and these products were basically used as a cheap substitute for cement but they shouldn't as the government only pointed out, they really add value to concrete and they should really be marketed such.

So, just a quick one difference, of course over here cement is relatively in expensive, does low energy cost. So, compared to Europe we have cement process over here of $64-70 still limit to customer whereas Europe we're talking about 80 that's Germany $120 that would be the UK. Of course there is no CO2 emission penalty over here which is at the moment in Europe in terms of per tonne of OPC roughly $7 which is pretty low because I remember times five, six years ago we were talking about $30-35 for a ton of OPC produced.

And of course last at least over here the cement materials that basically know no local supplies they have to be imported from other places. There's relatively high shipping costs depending where they come from, they're quite complicated sometime procedure of getting them cleared and there are still logistic inefficiencies in the system.

So, the key learning is I think they cannot and they should not market it as a cheap substitute for OPC. Just a quick look at the world map, so the middle you see our GCC countries in blue where are these materials imported from today. In the past there was Fly ash coming from South Africa to the GCC by now the main supplier is basically India with variance in quality. As for micro silica, we've two main sources, one is Europe and the other one is China. And lastly, GBFS and GGBFS is mainly coming from North East Asia, meaning China, Japan and eventually South Korea as well. However, there might be changes in the future I mean that's a long shot that maybe five, eight, ten years down the road. I heard about new projects of coal fire power plants in Dubai. There is currently fesibility study on going, and there also a long term plan to erect the power plant based on coal on the east coast of Egypt. So there might be more local supply in the future.

Well, this is just a quick look on the way these materials are transported. The most common way unfortunately still today is palletized, in big bags in containers although in this picture they are not palletized. I can't see well. This is okay for small volumes, it keeps you flexible but if you want to do bigger volumes, it's not the way you would import of powdery material into the region. So, the next step if you're doing let's says 5-8000 tonnes per shipment, you could do so called bulk shipment meaning putting big bags into the ship load directly.

This is a tricky game, because, if you don't do it properly, unloading can be quite a nightmare. So, this really needs some experience, of course the best way to do it, like we did in the US, is using clemetic close systems [xx] so you can do fliers the same way. It is a very clean industry operation, you can see that this was taken in Miami, in the background you can see the cruise ship.

So, nobody would allow you to discharge any powdery materials if it wasn't safe there. Of course that's the big advantage of GBFS, you can basically handle it as the as a standard bulk material, so you can just put it into the ship and discharge like that, which is of course the most economic way of doing it.

So, to wrap it up basically, I would say that some of these materials have a value in concrete and cement. Especially, in this part of the world, when we think about harsh environmental conditions like climate, like soil. We think that the market still needs to better understand, and I think we should all work on this.

That there is definitely a value added of these materials, in concrete and in cement they shouldn't just be wasted as a cheap substitute for cement and it shouldn't be looked at as a threat for clinger or cement production. So, the players should integrate these products into their market strategy, sourcing might be still be difficult, so sourcing strategies should include various materials one into various sources, because there is still a supply risk. Especially, the supply of GGBFS and GBFS, there is of course quite a bit with the overall economy.

And logistics still have to be worked upon, they have to become more efficient and less costly. Okay thank you very much.

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