FCB Horomill®, since 1995
Step into The story of the FCB Horomill®
A history of innovation, performance and partnerships
Through this dedicated page, we invite you to discover the story behind the FCB Horomill®, by exploring exclusive contents from our book, ahead of the public release of the complete edition.
This project was born out of a deep desire: to preserve and document the development of an innovation that has transformed our industry, and to share a human journey driven by the partnerships that shaped it. Through testimonials from our teams and our clients’ success stories, this book traces the key milestones, technical challenges, and strategic decisions that led to the deployment of this technology.
Stay tuned to learn more about the key chapters of this story, and request your printed copy by completing the form.
Request your printed copy!
Chapter 1 - 1991-1994: A revolution in grinding technology read the first chapter
Chapter 2 - 1994-2001: A series of firsts read the second chapter
Chapter 3 - 2001-2011: ramping up production read the third chapter
Chapter 4 - 2011-2022: Building Bigger, Better
Meeting new industry challenges
As the cement industry entered a new decade, expectations evolved. Efficiency, reliability and sustainability were no longer options, they became priorities for cement producers. To meet these evolving expectations, Fives continuously improved the FCB Horomill® technology, increasing mill capacity with the largest model ever, the FCB Horomill® 4400, while implementing continuous design enhancements to further improve performance.
Sustainability takes center stage
As CO₂ reduction became a global priority, the FCB Horomill® proved its relevance more than ever. Its lower energy consumption, reduced clinker factor and ability to handle a wide range of materials helped cement producers improve sustainability while maintaining high product quality and operational stability.
Throughout this period, Fives continued to support its customers worldwide, from large-scale industrial projects to remote assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring performance, continuity and reliability. Together, these developments reinforced the FCB Horomill® as a key milestone toward the cement plant of the future.
Customer Success // more stories
REPUBLIC CEMENT (a CRH-ABOITIZ Company)
Teresa plant – Teresa, Philippines
“Our rainy season means that pozzolan (SCM) can reach moisture levels of up to 25%, so we needed a system that would be able to dry materials in extreme conditions. Fives worked with us from the earliest project stages to make sure we had the right equipment in place to handle our unique environment.”
Lloyd Vicente, VP - Manufacturing, Republic Cement
Challenge
Republic Cement (a CRH-ABOITIZ Company) needed a new cement grinding plant in 2015—a period of strong market growth in the Philippines. Because of the region’s high humidity, Republic Cement required a grinding solution that would produce new cement types with higher additive content, such as wet pozzolan, fly ash and limestone, to replace some clinker. In effect, the new plant would need to produce cement with the highest cement-to-clinker ratio possible to balance existing grinding systems’ lack of drying capabilities.
Response
Factoring in the high moisture content of the pozzolan found in the plant’s vicinity, Fives designed and supplied an FCB Horomill® 3800 grinding plant that would meet Republic Cement’s specific requirements. With effective drying an essential factor, the team incorporated an FCB Aerodecantor and a 17 MW Fives Pillard vertical hot gas generator in the aeeraulic circuit to target a clinker factor as low as 0.5.
Result
The new FCB plant handled the low-clinker cement production with ease, increasing capacity by 0.85 Mta. The plant achieved the desired clinker factor using substitute additives that were readily available near the facility. The customer would demonstrate its satisfaction by making a repeat order for its Norzagaray plant.
Added value
Thanks to the use of carbon-neutral additives, CO2 emissions at the site were reduced by 94,000 tpy. This helped Republic Cement advance on its commitment to sustainable and environmentally friendly operations.
Insider testimonies
Timeline of a success
Success Stories and partnerships
Customer Success //
CEMENTOS FORTALEZA
Tula plant – Hidalgo, Mexico
As part of its expansion plans in Mexico, Cementos Fortaleza wanted to add three new grinding mills to a completely new production line at its existing Tula cement plant. The mills needed to demonstrate high reliability and performance for both the production of raw meal and high-quality blended cement (CPC-40-R, high early resistance cement).
Fives provided three identical FCB Horomill® grinding mills: one for raw meal, two for cement.
The new mills successfully met the expected performance levels, with the complete Tula Line 2 achieving the lowest electrical consumption in Mexico at less than 65 kWh/t for high-quality cement.
The three mills (raw meal and cement) were identical, simplifying maintenance by requiring only a single set of spare parts for the distinct sections.
Customer Success //
CSN (previously Holcim Brasil)
Barroso plant - Minas Gerais, Brazil
Holcim needed to significantly increase its Brazilian production capacity while optimizing costs and keeping its environmental footprint to a minimum. To achieve its goals, it decided to invest in a new 4,500 tpd clinker production line. The project required a reliable, high-efficiency grinding raw mill that would be able to handle raw materials that were known to be hard and abrasive.
To respond to these specific needs, Fives supplied its largest grinding mill ever, the FCB Horomill® 4400 and developed an automatic welding solution to simplify and reduce maintenance operations.
The new FCB Horomill® 4400 successfully tested to a 438 tph production rate with an electric-specific consumption of 5.4 kWh/t for the mill only, and 10.8 kWh/t for the mill department.
The installation achieved low electrical consumption while providing optimal availability in challenging conditions.
Customer Success //
HOLCIM MÉXICO
Hermosillo plant – Sonora, Mexico
“Our Hermosillo site required a grinding solution that would meet criteria specific to the harsh local environment. The FCB Horomill® was our choice because we knew it could achieve a high level of fineness in desert-like conditions. In addition, the fact that we could source a significant amount of the plant equipment from one supplier made Fives’ technology the right option.”
José Gama, Plant Director, Holcim México
Following Fives’ successful installation of a 3,000 tpd complete, turnkey plant to Holcim Group’s plant at Cartago (Costa Rica), Holcim called on Fives for its affiliate’s new project near Hermosillo (Mexico). The 3,500 tpd greenfield cement plant was being built in an area marked by significant water scarcity.
For the cement grinding section, Fives built not one but three FCB Horomill® 3800 mills in an integrated, compact building. Along with the cement mills, Fives supplied an FCB Off-Line Precalciner and an FCB Rotary Kiln to produce high-quality clinker for the mills with low thermal energy consumption—using alternative fuel— and low NOx emissions.
The unprecedented “triplet” installation of FCB Horomill® grinding mills saw each achieve up to 100 tph production capacity of very high-quality cement. The triplet solution’s grinding process was especially adapted to the desert-like conditions in which the plant was situated and could handle a wide variety of additive materials to reduce clinker content.
Leveraging the experience and technological knowhow of the entire Fives Group, the project incorporated Fives’ Pillard ROTAFLAM® multichannel burners and Fives Solios TGT® technology for common kiln, raw mill and cooler gas filtering.
Customer Success //
VIETNAM
Vinaincon's Thai Nguyen and Vinaconex's Cam Pha grinding plants - Vietnam
“Our main plant at Cam Pha wasn't yet in operation at the time of commissioning, so we had to import foreign clinker for the performance tests. Despite the variations in clinker quality, the FCB Horomill® performed great. It achieved the numbers we needed in terms of production rate, cement quality and energy consumption.”
Lê Quang Uyên Phương - Director, Southern Branch, Cam Pha cement JSC
State-owned construction company Vinaincon was looking to build a new cement plant, near Thai Nguyen in northern Vietnam. Vinaincon needed two cement grinding mills to achieve the intended capacity for this green eld cement plant. Meanwhile, Vinaconex needed to boost its Cam Pha Cement company production capacity to 1.8 million tpy. In this framework, Vinaconex decided to build a new separate grinding plant in the south, near Ho Chi Minh City. Both needed a trusted partner and proven leader in the cement industry who could scale up a solution combining low footprint with reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Fives came up with an innovative concept to meet these needs. It developed a fi rst-of-its-kind twin mill concept: two FCB Horomill® machines using a common gas and selection circuit, with one FCB TSVTM Classifi er 6500 HF and one fillter, along with one feeding system.
The compact structure of the twin FCB Horomill® system enabled a reduction in investment costs for both companies compared to standalone workshops. It also provided high flexibility in terms of production and
maintenance. The system further reduced investment cost by requiring a minimum of spare parts. On each of the sites, the two customers achieved production capacity of over 240 tph.
When one of the twin mills needed to undergo maintenance, the other could still be used, preserving the same high level of product quality.
Customer Success //
LAFARGE ZEMENT
Karsdorf plant – Karsdorf, Germany
“We were impressed by the versatility of the FCB Horomill®, which perfectly matched our multi-product portfolio with our sales requirements. The FCB Horomill® has fulfilled this objective since its installation.”
Stefan Fiedler, Investment Director, thomas zement GmbH
Lafarge Zement (now thomas zement GmbH) needed a grinding plant that could produce seven different products, including pure limestone, pure slag, Ordinary Portland Cement, and 70% slag cement.
Fives adapted the hydraulic design of both the FCB Horomill® and the classification system to handle the raw materials’ different grindabilities and the broad fineness spectrum.
The Karsdorf plant has proven able to produce not only blended cements, but pure limestone meal over 8,000 cm²/g and pure slag meal over 4,500 cm²/g.
Its stable automated operation capabilities and short residence time can easily handle the seven different product recipes and switch several times daily, ensuring continuous optimized operating conditions no matter the recipe.
Customer Success //
CEMENTOS MOCTEZUMA
Tepetzingo plant – Tepetzingo, Mexico
“We were proud to be the first manufacturer in the Americas to install an FCB Horomill® and the first to rely on such a machine for the entire process within a greenfield plant. Beyond its innovative technical concepts and lowest electrical energy consumption,the FCB Horomill® has the exceptional advantage to propose the same design for raw and cement grinding.”
Giovanni Battista Auxilia, Director, Engineering & Projects (2004-2024), Buzzi Unicem
Cementos Moctezuma wanted its first cement plant to be more effcient than other plants running at the time in Mexico.
Convinced by the performance achieved at Fratelli Buzzi’s Trino plant, Cementos Moctezuma selected Fives to supply two large 3800 FCB Horomill® mills for both raw and cement grinding.
The Cementos Moctezuma plant achieved its objective: it became the most effcient plant in Mexico, with the lowest electrical energy consumption.
The identical machines could both use the same replacement parts when needed, meaning that Cementos Moctezuma could keep fewer items in stock. Additionally, operational and maintenance teams only needed to learn how to work on one machine, since the other was its twin.
Customer Success //
ÇIMENTAŞ
Izmir plant – Izmir, Turkey
Turkey experienced a booming construction environment in the 1990s, but electricity prices were high. Çimentaş thus needed to increase cement production at its Izmir grinding plant in an energy-friendly way in comparison to its existing plants.
Fives installed and started up its largest grinding plant to date, the FCB Horomill® 3400, with a 3.4 m shell diameter.
The FCB Horomill® handled grinding for both Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and Pozzolanic cement, the latter of which was composed of 30% trass. Compared with a traditional ball mill, the cement production saw 35-50% energy savings.
Thanks to its stable automated operation capabilities and short residence time, the plant could switch from one product to the other within 10 minutes without requiring plant stoppage.
Customer Success //
FRATELLI BUZZI
Trino – Trino, Italy
“I consider the Trino Horomill® prototype to be an adopted brother. I remember well in September 1993, at the VDZ International Congress in Düsseldorf, my father Sandro proudly presented the mill's first results by saying, ‘A new baby is born!’ That machine was truly a technological breakthrough and immediately attracted great interest.
That baby has come a long way. It has been used to test the grinding of all possible materials in our sector and has enabled the develoment of its numerous older siblings that we have in operation in many of our factories.”Luigi Buzzi, Executive Director, Chief Technology Officer, Buzzi S.p.A.
Fratelli Buzzi (now Buzzi Unicem) was convinced there was a better way to grind cement than the traditional ball mill or other initial-stage roller mill methods. They believed it was possible to create an innovative grinding process using centrifugation, which could be installed at its cement-producing facilities.
Fives designed and tested a pilot mill before jumping to an industrial prototype by partnering with Fratelli Buzzi to design and build a 2200 mm prototype at the Trino plant.
Thanks to the close collaboration of the two teams, the FCB Horomill® was born. The cement quality matched Fratelli Buzzi’s needs, and energy savings were high. With this ¤rst success, Fives would launch into a long-term relationship with Fratelli Buzzi, which has continued to order FCB Horomill® grinding mills over the 30 years since the first order.
Decades of collaboration between Fives and Fratelli Buzzi have led to countless operational successes to the mutual bene¤t of both groups.
