Ceramics Industry
THE ECTS MEETS ONLINE
VIRTUAL AMEC FORUM 2020

News and Accomplishments
COMMISSIONING OF A NEW COMPLETE PLANT IN TURKMENISTAN

As happened in the spring meeting, the autumn meeting of the ECTS (European Ceramic Technology Suppliers) has had to be held again virtually, so this meeting took place in cyberspace last Friday, November 13, with the participation of 21 members of the group.

In this meeting the member companies discussed, among other aspects, a calendar of virtual events promoted by ECTS for the first semester of 2021 that will be made public soon, as well as the intention, as long as the end of the pandemic allows, of holding a physical symposium in the United States during the second half of the year.

The next ECTS meeting will almost certainly be online as well, but we hope for a normal autumn meeting next year, once again be with the usual characteristics, including the visit to a member company, the brotherhood dinner and the meeting to discuss the agenda face to face.

On November 10, the AMEC FORUM was held virtually. This FORUM, organized by the AMEC business association, of which BERALMAR is a member, and which in recent years has become a benchmark event in the world of industrial exporting companies in Catalonia due to the high level of content among presentations and panel discussions, has been held in recent years in the auditorium of the IESE business school campus in Barcelona.

Despite the pandemic, the AMEC management declined to give up the celebration of the AMEC FORUM 2020 and has chosen to carry it out virtually in a television format through YOUTUBE, alternating live content and recorded content in a very efficient manner and this ensured a flawless fluidity of the contents, and above all in an ease of access for the participant (simply by accessing the YOUTUBE link) that are highly missed in many virtual events that are held in the current context, where unfortunately technical incidents usually make an appearance.

The central theme of this year's AMEC FORUM has been the sense of purpose of the organizations, and in the following YOUTUBE link you can find a 5-minute summary that we recommend viewing: BRIEFING OF FORUM AMEC 2020.

Despite the successful execution of the AMEC FORUM this year, we hope that next year's FORUM can be held in person. It will be a sign that the normality that we all yearn for has returned.

BERALMAR has just started up a complete new factory in Turkmenistan.

The new multi-product DÖWLETI DOWREN plant, built in the Lebada region in the east of the Central Asian country, has a capacity of 550 tons/day of thermo-blocks, perforated and facing bricks and is undoubtedly the most modern plant in the country.

The factory runs on natural gas, which has a very low price since Turkmenistan is a major producer of this fuel.

The main characteristics of the new plant are:

• Complete line of multi-product handling equipment, especially complex due to the wide range of manufactured formats, including multiple cutters, chamfering, many programming tables, and robots have been installed at various points.
• Semi-continuous rack dryer, MESTRAL model, with conical recirculators and managed by the MICROSEC automatic drying control system.
• PRESTHERMIC tunnel kiln, air tight thanks to its metal casing design and high performance, equipped with automatic control of the firing process and natural gas combustion equipment.