Djebel Ressas: a complete plant takes shape
Djebel Ressas’ strategic location will enable Carthage Cement to supply the greater Tunis area, representing 50 percent of the national demand
Carthage Cement, one of North Africa’s foremost cement manufacturers, recently commissioned FLSmidth to develop Djebel Ressas, Tunisia’s largest and most technologically advanced cement plant. The client was extremely keen on having the best possible expertise for the project, and agreed that FLSmidth would be responsible for a wide range of machine and equipment delivery, as well as for project co-ordination.
PART 1
Creating the 5,800 tpd Djebel Ressas cement plant is an enormous undertaking. The project covers over 220 hectares in a southern suburb of the capital, Tunis, and adopts the latest energy-efficient technology, involves hundreds of highly specialised professionals and requires thousands of hours of meticulous planning, precision engineering and labour. “We have paid particular attention to adopting the latest technology, high economy of energy consumption and great respect for the environment,” says Mr Lazhar Sta, CEO of Carthage Cement.
Djebel Ressas’ strategic location will enable Carthage Cement to supply the greater Tunis area, representing 50 percent of the national demand, as well as export markets. It will also contribute significantly to economic and social development throughout the region by generating 400 to 500 direct jobs when the plant is operational, as well as additional jobs with subcontractors.
One company – one solution
To perform the project, FLSmidth teamed up at an early stage of the sale with the experienced Turkish contractor, EKON. The client selected FLSmidth as the supplier of machinery and engineering for the new plant and EKON was given responsibility for civil design, supply of structural steel and plate work, site preparation, civil works and plant erection. This teamwork is a critical component for the success of Djebel Rassas.
Throughout the project, FLSmidth oversight helps ensure consistently high standards, integration and, ultimately, substantial time- and cost-savings for Carthage Cement. The value associated with this One Source strategy and FLSmidth’s successful track record were two important factors for Carthage Cement’s shareholders. The successful introduction of Carthage Cement on the Tunis stock market revealed that these were also critical factors for other investors, as the Carthage Cement stock has remained stable at a high valuation even during and after the recent unrest in Tunisia.
Right from the outset, FLSmidth was able to efficiently move the project ahead thanks to an approach to project management that centres on regular customer contact and open dialogue. Highly skilled FLSmidth project managers were involved from a very early stage – even at initial customer sales meetings. As Sandra Pihl Heise, project manager for FLSmidth, points out, “Once the sales process had been completed we brought together all the key points of contact in FLSmidth who would be coordinating the different phases of the plant’s development. This meeting involved many different people from all departments and proved to be a highly effective way to outline targets, set responsibilities, agree upon timelines and begin detailed planning, including finance, logistics and HR functions. A following project meeting with Carthage Cement and their advisor PEG was set up where everything was carefully discussed and debated, and exact specifications were agreed to, with room for flexibility should anything unforeseen occur.
Engineering, planning and civil work
“The planning stage of any project is always lengthy and detailed,” she says, “but for the Djebel Ressas plant there were an especially large number of factors to be considered, ranging from the macro (what capacities were appropriate, which equipment should be used) to the micro (how many filters and bolts were needed) and everything in between. Planning for the plant required between 12 and 15 thousand engineering drawings, and several hundred different people contributed to the design, drawings and specification of machinery.”
The overall layout of the site and all civil work was also agreed upon in detail – down to how many lamps were needed to light up the complex at night. This planning set the stage for actual site mobilisation and civil work on a scale one would normally associate with building a town, encompassing roads, utilities and preparation of the plant site. Worker housing (for around 1,000 employees at the peak of construction – not including 800 more who will be bussed to the worksite), canteens, offices and warehouses were put up and plant equipment began to be shipped in and stored. A fleet of trucks worked day in and day out unloading equipment and supplies into a storage area equivalent to the size of six soccer fields. A total of 490,000 cubic metres of earth had to be removed just to level the area, exclusive of foundation work for the plant. Infrastructure was a major undertaking, including seven kilometres of roads and a total of six kilometres of water pipes. Next came preparation for construction of the plant, including excavation and form work, followed by reinforcement, casting the foundation and raising the plant building’s steel structure.
Purchasing and manufacturing
As part of the planning process, the managers of each department collaborated to create what was essentially a long shopping list that outlined everything that would eventually be needed to build the plant. This shopping list was handed to a specially appointed manager of FLSmidth’s purchasing department, whose task was to ensure that the most appropriate, highest quality and best-priced components would be sourced from global vendors or, if possible, manufactured in FLSmidth’s own proprietary workshops worldwide.
As a global group, FLSmidth was able to secure highly competitive prices from vendors in a variety of countries, including Germany, China, Finland, France, Poland, India and Brazil – all on the basis of an agreed vendor list. Throughout the purchasing stage, Carthage Cement was kept fully up to date with monthly progress reviews. Even though there were thousands of individual components being assembled in many different workshops across the globe, FLSmidth performed regular inspections to ensure a consistently high standard was met. Carthage cement also participated in inspecting main items of equipment.
Shipping and transportation
Much of the plant consists of extremely large, heavy and complicated parts (the raw mill alone weighs 600 tonnes and comprises of thousands of individual components), requiring experienced professionals who have specialised knowledge of both the equipment at hand and the methods of delivery. All transportation of equipment or materials from the vendors to the site is done by sea: equipment is being shipped from 20 different harbours. About 75 full shiploads – bulk and 400 containers – are needed for the complete plant.
FLSmidth’s shipping teams work meticulously to ensure that everything is delivered safely and securely. And on schedule – just a day’s delay at one end of the supply chain can cause a series of setbacks further down the line. Carthage Cement is regularly updated with tracking reports, delivery times and confirmation of the safe arrival of key components.
Constant contact
A crucial element that supported the successful first stage of the Djebel Ressas project was FLSmidth’s use of MyFLSTM, an intranet system that enables everyone involved in the project to quickly and easily access any drawing, itinerary, plan or agenda. If changes are made to a document, no matter how large or small, the relevant people are instantly alerted via update reports. In addition, regular face-to-face meetings – often on site – and detailed monthly reports featuring photos of all progress enable Carthage Cement to see the exact status of each part of the process. All of which helped make the initial stages of the Djebel Ressas plant a great success and laid the foundation for the next important phase, erection, which will be covered in the next article in this series.
Contact:Sandra Pihl Heise