Cement production facilities are often located in rural areas and close to quarries, where the raw materials required for cement production are present, i.e. limestone and shale. Although energy analysis, based on the first law of thermodynamics, is used to reduce heat losses or enhance heat recovery, it does not give any information on the degradation of energy that occurs in the process. Exergy analysis, based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics, facilitates improvement of the operation or technology by clearly indicating the locations of energy degradation in the process. In this study, the applications of energy and exergy analyses are examined for a dry system rotary burner (RB) with pre-calcinations in a cement plant of an important cement producer in Turkey. The RB includes thermal and chemical processes. Besides, real figures of the cement factory have been used in this work. In conclusion, the values of the first and second law efficiencies have been found and compared. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.