The cement manufacture is 1 of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Poland.
As Marianna Sobkiewicz wrote in the economical Week of the Polish economical Institute, No. 15/2025, the cement manufacture in 2022 was liable for over 20% of all industrial emissions in the country. The difficulties of decarbonisation of cement production are partially due to the structure of the industry's emissions. Process emissions (i.e. from chemical reactions) dominate cement production. In the EU, around 60% of the emissions of the cement manufacture are process emissions from calcination of calcium stone to calcium oxide, 30% account for heat request and only 10% comes from electricity consumption.
Polish law prevents CO2 retention on land – this is simply a barrier for CCS
According to the expert, the key technology to decarbonise cement production in Poland and abroad will be carbon capture and retention technology (CCS). The Kujawy Cemetery, owned by Holcim Polska SA, is presently implementing the only task in Poland to capture CO2 on an industrial scale. The first industrial CO2 capture installation in Poland is to be launched by 2030 and capture about 10 million tonnes of CO2 in a decade, which is on average 10% of all emissions from Polish cement production per year.
However, as the expert emphasizes, the barrier to the improvement of CCS technology remains the fact that Polish law does not presently supply for the anticipation of storing CO2 on land, which would importantly reduce the costs of this technology. Thanks to the comparative proximity of the Baltic Sea, the Kujawy Cemetery can usage the option of transporting CO2 to Norwegian warehouses in the North Sea. However, the remaining 9 Polish cement plants are located in the alleged Cement Belt, which extends from the Opole state to the confederate Lublin Region, which reduces the chances of cost-effectiveness of the possible transport of CO2 by pipelines for its subsequent retention in the North Sea and the Norwegian continental shelf.
The EU Council adopted the 5th package of sanctions for Russia and Belarus, which prohibited imports of cement from them.
According to Sobkiewicz, the challenges of decarbonisation and environmental protection and advanced energy prices are crucial factors that contributed to reducing cement production in Poland from 2019 to 2023 by 18% and expanding the function of imports. In 2015-2023 Germany was the largest exporter of cement to Poland, and by 2022 deliveries from Belarus besides played an crucial role.
As the expert recalls in April 2022, the EU Council adopted the 5th sanction package on Russia and Belarus, which prohibited the import of cement from these directions. In 2024 Ukraine became the largest abroad cement supplier to Poland, entering the place of Belarusian and partially German supplies, and imports from this direction amounted to 660 1000 tonnes in 2024.
Growing imports from Ukrainian cement plants challenge for the competitiveness of Polish plants
Meanwhile, expanding imports from Ukrainian cement plants which are not covered by the cost of CO2 emanation allowances may pose an additional challenge to the competitiveness of Polish plants, especially in the context of the withdrawal of free allowances for EU producers under the EU ETS. The answer should be the decarbonisation of Polish cement production based on CCS technology, taking into account the anticipation of storing CO2 on land – says Marianna Sobkiewicz.
