Belgium: Ballast Nedam sells quarry to Group De Cloedt

Dutch construction company Ballast Nedam and Dutch concrete company Microbeton are to work together and set up a joint venture named Concrete Valley. The new venture will be made up of Ballast Nedam's subsidiary Waco Lingen Beton and Microbeton. The company will focus on specialised solutions in the concrete industry. Financial details of the cooperation have not been released.

In order to highlight its virtuous practices at its gypsum quarries, plasterboard producer Placoplatre (Saint-Gobain) organised visits to its extraction sites in Le Pin-Villeparisis and Cormeilles-en-Parisis in Ile-de-France. According to Placoplatre, the Paris basin holds three-quarters of French gypsum deposits, although more than 80% of these deposits are not available. The quarry in Le Pin-Villeparisis has been operated since 1822 and supplies 600,000tonnes of gypsum each year to Placoplatre's Vaujours

BAM Ritchies has been awarded a contract by Granutogo (a HeidelbergCement company) to carry out primary drilling and blasting of between 300,000-600,000tonnes/year from a rock outcrop close to the township of Agbelouve, Togo, West Africa identified as Amelekpe Migmatite on the featured map of Togo. The quarry will be developed by BAM Ritchies in benches of 10-15m in depth. BAM Ritchies will provide profiling, surveying, drilling and shot-firing services as well as explosives and initiation accessories. Gran