The Cementos Molins factory is part of the collective imagination of all those who have spotted it from afar while driving on the highway to Barcelona or returning to the city by train. For years, the plant has been undergoing a remodeling to update itself and reduce the pollution that affects the closest towns, especially Sant Vicenç dels Horts. The commissioning of the new kiln in 2010 marked a turning point in the 95 years of the family business. With the new installation, the kilns closest to the N-340, a road that connects Molins de Rei with Cervelló, which had been in operation since the 1960s and had an accumulated production of 42 million tons of cement, stopped working. Although they were stopped 13 years ago, they were not completely dismantled until 2021, taking advantage of a good part of their materials to manufacture cement in the new kiln, with the same productive capacity as the three previous ones combined.
The company continues to advance on its path towards climate neutrality, which they expect to reach by 2050, with new facilities that allow them to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels to heat the kiln, as well as reduce the 820,000 tons of CO2 they emit annually. Among the latest investments is the construction of a raw material recovery plant, in operation since September 2022. With a capacity to process 75,000 tons of material, it allows less natural resources to be used in cement production by taking advantage of materials from large construction projects that usually end up in landfills. Specifically, it serves to convert concrete waste into recycled aggregate and industrial waste into raw material that is destined for the Baix Llobregat plant.
On the other hand, oil has accounted for 45% of the bill for heating the Cementos Molins kiln in the last two years. The remaining 55% has been made up of a mixture of alternative fuels such as wood, sewage sludge, waste-derived fuels or tires, the latter heavily criticized by neighborhood associations in Sant Vicenç. According to its CEO, Julio Rodríguez, they are working to expand the authorization for burning alternative fuels, currently set at 115,000 tons, still needing to define how the weights will be distributed among the four types they manage. "We want a license to make this plant more sustainable by making new modifications to the kilns to reduce thermal and electrical consumption, and also to be able to reach increasingly higher levels of valorization of these recycled fuels," explains Rodríguez. The goal is to achieve a weight of alternative fuels that is between 80% and 90% of the total, in line with the proportion that similar factories have in other European countries.
The new raw material recovery facility is part of a set of investments carried out in the last two years, with a global budget of 6.6 million euros. The allocation has also allowed for the remodeling of other areas of the factory, such as the offices, making them more flexible and open, with measures such as eliminating private offices, notes Rodríguez. Likewise, photovoltaic panels have been installed in the employee parking lot, making the offices energetically self-sufficient, and the vegetation has been renewed with native plants that do not need much water. The inauguration ceremony for the new spaces was attended by the Minister of Business and Labor, Roger Torrent, and mayors from the area such as Miguel Comino (Sant Vicenç), Ascensión Ratia (Pallejà), Xavi Paz (Molins de Rei) and Anna Pascual Roca (La Palma de Cervelló), as well as deputy mayors Montserrat Canas (Cervelló) and David Ferrer (Vallirana).
Beyond these investments, Cementos Molins annually allocates some 40 million euros to keep the plant up to date. The multinational primarily produces Portland cement, the most widely used in construction. In its Barcelona factory, it has the capacity to generate 1.5 million tons annually, but the drop in demand has led them to reduce production by half. They also manufacture calcium aluminate cement, being the only producer in all of Spain and with a maximum capacity of 50,000 tons. In this case, they manage to produce almost all the tons that the plant allows them. It was this cement, characterized by being very resistant, that they began selling in 1928. Their products are used in works being carried out in the city such as the connection of Metro Line 9, the Sagrada Família, and the future Camp Nou.
The multinational's total workforce stands at 6,200 employees, distributed across the 12 countries in which it operates, with 870 located in Catalonia and 2,400 in Spain as a whole. In 2022, Cementos Molins earned 112 million euros, 7% more than the previous year, and had a turnover of 1,268 million euros, 31% more, both record figures for the company that moved its headquarters to Madrid in 2017 due to the political crisis in Catalonia. In this first semester, profits stood at 80 million euros, 40% more, and sales at 705 million euros, 16% more. Its CEO expects 2024 to be a complicated year due to the global economic slowdown.