Frequently Asked Questions

Clinker is an intermediary product in the manufacturing of cement, often called the “glue.” Clinker is produced by heating limestone with aluminosilicate materials, such as clay, at incredibly high temperatures to produce calcination. The resulting clinker is found in the form of small lumps which are then ground into a fine powder and mixed with gypsum to produce finished cement.

The colors indicate plant status. Orange represents developing plants (“announced” and “construction”), green represents operating plants (“operating” and “operating-pre retirement”), blue represents “mothballed” plants, red represents “retired” and “cancelled” plants, and black represents “unknown” status.

Each plant location is marked “exact” or “approximate.” In the case of exact coordinates, locations have been visually determined using Google Maps, Google Earth, or Wikimapia (existing projects). For announced projects, exact locations, if available, are from permit applications or other company documentation.

If a plant is still in the announced phase, prior to construction and operation, there may be no sign of activity. In other cases, only approximate location information could be found. Additionally, satellite photos in some geographies are updated infrequently, so recent activity is not shown.

Plant status is categorized as follows:

• Announced: Projects that have been announced in corporate or governmental planning documents, but have not begun construction.
• Construction: Physical plant structure building has begun.
• Operating: Plant is producing clinker, cement, or both.
• Mothballed: Plant clinker and/or cement production has been idled such that it cannot be brought into operation immediately, but is not closed.
• Operating pre-retirement: Plant is currently operating, but has announced plans to retire its cement and/or clinker capacity.
• Retired: Plant has ceased operations and no longer has the ability to produce cement and/or clinker.
• Cancelled: Plant previously planned or under development that has been cancelled. If no progress or announcements for an announced plant are made after 5 years, the plant is considered to be cancelled.
• Unknown: Information about plant type could not be found.

Yes, click on “Table view” on the bottom of the map.

Cement capacity is the amount of finished cement an integrated or grinding plant can theoretically produce given the efficiency of their installed finished cement grinding unit(s). 

Clinker capacity is the amount of clinker that an integrated or clinker-only plant can theoretically produce given the efficiency of their installed kiln(s).

Capacities are measured in units of million metric tonnes per annum. When necessary, annual capacities are estimated based on the assumption of continuous operation of the production lines. 

Note that capacity is not the same as production, which would be the actual amount of cement and/or clinker produced by a plant. Capacity is the theoretical amount that can be produced in a given year, but is typically greater than actual production which can be hampered by numerous factors.

Integrated cement plants are those that have active kilns to produce clinker and grinding capacity to produce finished cement. The amount of cement and clinker produced at these plants often do not match due to bottlenecking at various phases in the production line, and therefore these plants may supplement clinker shortcomings or sell off excess clinker produced. 

Grinding plants are those that do not have active kilns to produce clinker, instead purchasing from other producers or transporting it in from other plants. These plants only have grinding capacity and therefore only produce finished cement. These plants are typically much smaller, cheaper to run, require less energy, and produce much lower emissions than integrated plants.

Clinker-only plants, much like their name suggests, produce only clinker and do not have grinding capacity. These plants are typically built to supplement clinker capacity for other integrated or grinding plants owned by the same company. Due to the singular focus on clinker production, the most energy and emission intensive process in cement manufacturing, these plants tend to have significant emission footprints.

The Global Cement and Concrete Tracker aims to include all operating cement plants in each country or area, regardless of size.

The standard naming convention of the Global Cement and Concrete Tracker is “[Municipality] Cement Plant”. Some plants are given unique names by the owners, or based on local conventions that fall outside of the standard naming convention. Those unique names are indicated when relevant.

The difference between white and grey cement is primarily in aesthetic; one is white and one is grey. However, to achieve that difference requires specific production methods. 

Grey cement is the typical construction cement and is used in the majority of situations. White cement is primarily used for architectural or aesthetic purposes.

To achieve the correct color for white cement, iron and manganese oxides are minimized in the raw material mix and oil is primarily used as fuel, as opposed to coal or pet coke which is typically used for grey cement, to avoid contamination of the color. For these reasons, and the fact that white cement requires an independent production line from other cements, white cement tends to have higher energy requirements and emissions footprints, and be  more expensive.

As different countries and regions have differing categorization systems for cement types, the reported types align with general categories of cement rather than one specified categorization system. As such, majority cement type falls within the following categories:

• OPC: The cement produced falls within the general category of ordinary portland cement, which does not include supplementary cementitious materials resulting in a high clinker percentage (typically 95% or more).
• Blended: The cement produced falls within the general category of blended cements, which utilizes supplementary cementitious materials to reduce clinker percentage, such as fly ash, slag, pozzolans, limestone, etc.
• Blast Furnace Slag: The plant produces blast furnace slag (GGBS) for use in blended cements (this does not include plants that produce blended cements made with blast furnace slag, which would fall in the “blended” category).
• N/A: The plant does not produce finished cement or GGBS.
• Unknown: The primary cement type produced can not be clearly determined.

Integrated and clinker production facilities can utilize multiple types of production which impact the overall carbon footprint of the finished clinker. The production types include:

• Wet – The most carbon intensive production method. Raw material inputs are mixed into a meal using water and then dried out in the kiln. Required higher water input and more energy use to dry out the wet meal. 
• Dry – A more modern production method. Mixes raw materials with a precalciner using air cyclones. It is much less energy and carbon intensive compared to wet production.
• Semidry – A hybrid between wet and dry production.
• Mixed – The plant contains multiple production lines which utilize different production methods.

Most modern kilns use dry production as it is less carbon intensive and saves money in the long run. Dry process kilns often use precalciners as they are more effective at mixing the dry meal while at the same time preheating the material before it enters the kiln, thus saving energy.

The GCCT has integrated its owner and parent data with GEM’s Global Energy Ownership Tracker. Please visit that project’s homepage for more information.

The GCCT reports the first owner/operator of the plant in the “Owner” column.

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The tracker was designed and produced by Global Energy Monitor. To the extent possible, the information in the tracker has been verified by researchers familiar with particular countries. The following people participated in plant-by-plant research: Joshua Clement (Global Energy Monitor), Caitlin Swalec (Global Energy Monitor), Henna Khadeeja (Global Energy Monitor), Jessie Zhi (Global Energy Monitor), Norah Elmagraby (Global Energy Monitor), Zhanaiym Kozybay (Global Energy Monitor), Ziwei Zhang (Global Energy Monitor), Rolando Almada (Global Energy Monitor), (Charmaine Daisay (Global Energy Monitor), Fanwei Liu (Global Energy Monitor), and Charlene Hou (formerly Global Energy Monitor). The project is managed by Joshua Clement, within GEM’s Heavy Industry Program, managed by Caitlin Swalec, with support from Louisa Plotnick and Ted Nace. 

Please refer to the Download Data page for citation guidance.