Concrete Plants, Equipment & Applications

Eurobeton has strengthened its concrete supply business in Russia with the opening of a new plant in St Petersburg this week. The new facility, which is capable of producing 19,000m3 of concrete per day, is equipped with machinery from Italy-based Simem.

TKS-Beton has announced the inauguration of its seventh ready mixed concrete plant in the Ukraine, which it says is a key part of its strategy to double its market share in the region by 2013. The new 60m3 per hour plant at Kyiv is designed to manufacture all grades of ready mixed concrete, including B40-60 material, and is expected to be joined shortly by a second TKS-owned facility in the region.

Cemex has opened a new concrete plant in Ile-de-France in a bid to improve its environmental performance in the region. The new facility replaces an existing plant at Porte de Tolbiac.

Cemex UK hopes to improve its delivery capabilities with investment of £2.9million in 40 new Man vehicles, which will be based at its South Ferriby cement plant in Lincolnshire. The Man 26-440 Euro 5 TGS 6 x 2 tractor units, fitted with Gardner Denver XK 12 blower units and Hyropack will replace 40 existing vehicles that have completed over 750,000kms and are suffering from increased downtime.

Holcim is planning to build a new crushing and mixing facility at La Pallice Port in La Rochelle, France in a bid to increase its cement production capacity. The new plant will be capable of producing 3,500tonnes of cement per day and is expected to be fully operational by September 2013.

Lafarge, which claims to have the most advanced research laboratory in the world for construction materials, based in Lyon, France, is currently working on improving cement production techniques and also improving the performance of products to make them more energy efficient, and thus help the group meet European regulations. The French cement company, which invests €150 million in research, says a key element towards this is reducing the use of clinker as its decarbonation represents 60% of emissions when

Mexican concern Cemex has signed an agreement with Econ Trade, the alternative fuel specialist, under which a joint venture called EkoPaliwa Chelm is to be set up in Poland. It will be in charge of building a facility, which will produce alternative fuel from communal waste at Cemex's cement factory in Chelm. It will produce 100,000tonnes of fuel annually. The facility, whose launch will cost €3 million, is to cover 30% of the factory's demand for fuel and will help Cemex to reduce the C02 emission.

China's Tianjin Cement Industry Design & Research had completed all engineering design works for the cement production line of HeidelbergCement's plant in Tula, Russia, which will be put into trial operations in May 2011. Costing €275 million, the plant will have a daily clinker capacity of 5,000tonnes. Meanwhile, the German group's Cesla cement plant in the Leningrad region of north-west Russia, is planning to expand its cement production capacities from 400,000tonnes to 1.2 million tonnes a year following

Spain-based Cementos Blancos de Aragon (CBA) has announced the opening of a new cement plant in Azuara. The company has said the initially the plant will use clinker imported from Turkey to produce 250,000tonnes of cement per year but when the plant is fully operational in 2013, the facility will be capable of producing 925,000tonnes of cement per year.