Cement Manufacturing
The raw materials required to manufacture the clinker are (limestone, bauxite ore, iron ore, and sand). They are mixed and grinded in certain proportions to be converted into a soft mixture, then transported to storage silos, then moved to the heat exchanger within five phases. The procedures to manufacture the clinker begin with the interaction between the mixture and heat exchanger to complete the first process which is the “initial heating” of the mixture, and then the process of calcination where the calcium carbonate is converted to calcium oxide. The oxides are then fed into a large rotary kiln at a temperature of 1400° Celsius. The interaction is then completed by the process of burning the oxides of the raw materials by which these oxides are combined and the clinker material is manufactured. The manufacture of clinker is summarized in three processes (initial heating, calcination, and burning). The clinker is then transported to coolers to reduce its temperature, thereafter it will be mixed and ground with (3.5%) of gypsum to produce the cement, and then stored in silos designated for cement. Finally, it is marketed either as bulk in designated trucks or packed in bags.
Company’s Plant & Progression of Production Capacity
First: The Cement Mills
The Company began by constructing the first plant for cement manufacture in East Shuaiba Industrial District, which started production on 15th May 1972 after building two mills for clinker and gypsum grinding and cement manufacture, with the production capacity of 300 Thousand tons of cement per year.
Towards implementing the Company’s ambitious plans of coping with the urban development and the strategies of development projects in the country, the Company had to improve its production so as to provide the cement material to the local market. Therefore, the Company carried out several expansions in the plant to increase production capacity of milling starting from 1978 and continued as such by establishing several new milling production lines on progressive phases. The latest phase was performed by the end of 2009 when the Company completed the construction of a new clinkerisation unit, thus the total production capacity of the plant reached 3.8 Million tons of cement per year, while the overall operational capacity reached more than 5 Million tons of cement per year. Accordingly, Kuwait Cement Company became the most important pillar in the national industry edifice, and main supporter of the development projects and urban movement in the country.
Second: The Kiln producing “Clinker”
In line with the Company’s policy of completing its production lines, building an integrated cement industry, and achieving its most important strategic objectives of localizing the cement industry in the country, the Company constructed on the land of its plant at East Shuaiba Industrial district, two huge kilns for the production of Clinker (the main material for cement manufacture). The first kiln began operation in 2001 with the production capacity of 2.5 Million tons per year. The said plant was built and equipped with the latest technological capabilities and is deemed as one of the most important events that accompanied the Company’s march over the past four decades. Moreover, the Company established two mills for raw materials with a capacity of 245 Tons/Hour each, two silos for clinker storage with a capacity of 50 Thousand tons each, and a pre-heater with a height of 126 meters. Furthermore, construction of this kiln was carried out in conjunction with installing equipment to unload and move the raw materials from the vessels directly to the kiln’s feeding site inside the plant using a shaded conveyor belt with a length of 780 meters, height of 10 Meters across the road, with design capacity of 1500 Tons/hour. The system used in this conveyor belt is deemed amongst the most efficient in the world concerning handling raw materials.
Since the Company needs double quantities of Clinker to cover the variance resulting from expanding the cement grinding capacity, the Company constructed a second kiln to produce Clinker. The trial commissioning of this kiln started in July 2013 and its commercial production started in 2014 within the current site of the plant with the production capacity of Clinker of 2.5 Million tons per year, which when added to the current capacity the total production capacity of Clinker becomes 5 Million tons per annum. In addition, to installing two mills for the raw materials with a capacity of 300 Tons/ hour each, two silos for storing the Clinker with a capacity of 60 Thousand tons, and a pre-heater tower with a height of 151.5 meters. This plant is deemed as one the largest factories in the Gulf region that acts as an independent unit which the State of Kuwait is proud of. As such, the Company became able to supply the Clinker required to produce 16 Thousand tons of cement per day, hence the Company realized its objectives of localizing the cement industry and securing the needs of cement for the citizens, the projects of the State’s strategic development plans as well as the private projects.
Packaging
The cement is packed automatically at the plants of Kuwait Cement Company using either of these two methods:
First: Packing from the silos designated for transporting the bulk cement, which is carried out automatically using special equipment and get weighed electronically.
Second: Packing the cement in bags of 50 kilograms each. The empty bags are transported and packaged automatically using rotary packaging machines. Thereafter, the bags are weighed by using precise electronic method, then moved via conveyor belts of multiple movements, and then loaded automatically onboard the vehicles using special equipment controlled by computer that counts the number of bags to be loaded.