Volyn-cement

Volyn-Cement OJSC (former Zdolbunovskiy cement-slate combinate) has a designed production capacity that exceeds 2 million tons of cement per annum. It is and always was one of leaders of the Ukrainian cement industry by product quality and output.

The history of cement from Zdolbunov starts already in the 70ies of the 19th century. There was a high quality deposit of chalk close to the little city of Zdolbunov and an opportunity of its use as a raw material for cement production. The Czech brothers Ilenki learned about this and built a small cement plant near Zdolbunov. The equipment of the enterprise made up five kilns.

In 1889 the owners created a company Ilenki & Co, which enabled them to involve additional capital for further expansion of the plant and investment into equipment with higher efficiency and output. In those days the factory produced portlandcement, the daily output did not exceed 90 t. The plant operated seasonally, and in the production process manual work was most important.

In 1910 the Zdolbunov cement plant was purchased by the joint-stock-company “Volyn” whose management was situated in Warsaw. The enterprise was reconstructed, the first two rotary kilns and a new type cement mill were installed.

In the 30ies of the 20st century the plant worked on its capacity limit, each year it produced 85 thousand tons of cement. First volumes of the high-quality cement grade 500 were sold.

From 1946 the Zdolbunov cement plant regularly produced cement grade 500, in those days this was an enormous achievement. Even in the west this was very unusual and modern.

However the position of the factory in the central part of the city did not allow to increase its capacity sufficiently. Therefore in 1948 the government of the former USSR took the decision to build a new cement plant in Zdolbunov located out of the city boundaries. In 1952 the construction of “New-Zdolbunov Cement Plant” was started. After four years the first technological lines were commissioned. Simultaneously the construction of a village for the employees of the plant was undertaken. Also on the territory of “New-Zdolbunov Cement Plant” the construction of a plant of asbestos-cement products with design capacity of 155 million standard plates per year was built.

The enterprise gradually increased its capacities. The plant got equipped with new rotary kilns with measures 4,5x170 m, the plant had a capacity of 820 thousand tons of cement per annum.

In 1963 the old and the new cement plant and a slate factory were united in one cement-slate combinate which then was one of the most powerful and advanced enterprises of the industry of building materials of Ukraine. The combinate produced common cements like grade 400, 500 and cement for asbestos-products, special high-strength cement grade 600 as well as oil-well cements for cold and hot boreholes.

Production of the very high-strength portland cement grade 600 was achieved for the first time in the USSR. The production technology for this cement - protected by the copyright certificate N б-1778. phe - was sold to Great Britain, France and Italy. In 1972 first cement grade 700 was produced experimentally. Many technological novelties have been developed on the plant, most important of them the commissioning of the slurry transport line from the quarry in an industrial way bridging a distance of 3,6 km.

In 1994 the Zdolbunov cement-slate combinate was transformed to the “Zdolbunov Open Joint-Stock Company on manufacture of cement and slate Volyn-Cement”.

In 2001 a controlling share in the Open Joint-Stock Company Volyn-Cement was purchased by the German industrial group Dyckerhoff AG.

Since then a new era began in the history of Volyn-Cement - the enterprise became member of a big international family of cement plants. New know-how, new equipment, improvement of the production, continuous cooperation with foreign experts - all this allows Volyn-cement to develop further for the well being of its customers, employees and its environment.

Products of Volyn-Cement were used and continue to be used for construction of the most important and well-known objects of Ukraine, for example the reconstruction of the destroyed Khreschatic in post-war times as well as its reconstruction after Ukraine’s independence. Furthermore objects with special requirements to durability, as for example the Rovno and Khmelnitskiy atomic power plants, bridges, airports as well as objects of the Ukrainian Army were built with cement from Volyn. As in the past the plant not only produces cement that is widely used in industrial and housing construction it also still makes special oil-well cements for the needs of the petroleum and gas industry.