Today is day 5 of Cyprus and it was another day full of company visits. Our first stop was in Vassiliko at the Vassiliko Cement Works Headquarters. They were established in 1963 and their first cement production began in 1967. Concrete is the second most consumed material in the world and Vassiliko produces 75 billion tons of concrete per year. In order to create concrete three ingredients are needed including limestone, clay, and gypsum. Vassiliko has 2 limestone quarries, 2 clay quarries, and 1 gypsum quarry. After the raw material for concreate are gathered they are then crushed and the sent for blending and grinding. Vassiliko then sends them to 1 of 5 raw meal silos. The three raw materials are then turned into clinker by first being preheated between 90 degrees Celsius to 900 degrees Celsius, then sent through a kiln and finally cooled. During the preheating process, Vassiliko uses alternate fuels such as chopped tires and dried sewage sludge to reduce carbon emissions.
Vassiliko also built a port in 1983 that serves the company’s needs for all imports and exports. It is different from the Limassol Port that we visited yesterday since the Vassiliko Port is an industrial port and they export both clinker and cement as well as bulk products for third party vendors. They deal with about 300 ships per year and concrete is the third largest exported product in Cyprus, with number one being medicine and then Halloumi. In order to get the clinker or concrete into vessels, Vassiliko uses a conveyor belt, located below, and gravity.
Right next to Vassiliko headquarters was VTTV which is a branch of VTTI. They are an oil storage company that is headquartered in the Netherlands. They store gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other oils in 34 million barrels. Their supply chain includes 3 parts: upstream, midstream, and down stream. The upstream includes raw materials, midstream includes the storage and processing in distillation, and down stream is refinery, oil storage, and distribution on truck, boat, pipeline, and plane. Their supply chain is customer focused and they try to focus on sustainability by making sure their supply chain is as efficient as possible and minimizes waste.
The third company we visited today was Cyprus Marine Maritime Institute (CMMI). They presented a wide range of projects each of their divisions was focusing on. The first division is the Maritime Digitalization Centre was working on IoT devices which are surface devices with intelligent marine spatial planning. The Marine and Offshore Science, Technology and Engineering Centre was working on a project called Zero Emission Sea Transport or ZEST. The project focused on sustainability by developing a zero-emission vessel in Cyprus in order to address decarbonization. This vessel would be the first of its kind in Cyprus and prove that zero emission vessels are possible. The most interesting project they were working on was in their Marine Robotics Division which was working on Sea Centaurs. They were developing two jet skis to be autonomous and work together to use a boom system that can be used for cleaning oil spills and search and rescue missions.
During today’s sites visits, the different companies each mentioned how the production or distribution of their product focuses on sustainability. As a future chemical engineer, I plan to work in pharmaceuticals and make sure to limit the amount of carbon emissions released during the production while maintaining an efficient supply chain and focusing on the customers needs.