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South African surface mining association Aspasa has taken the proactive step of educating its members on the laws and regulations governing the safe use of drones to undertake various work site tasks.

A series of talks led by Mandy Tebbit, of Cranfield Aviation Training, staged at Aspasa regional meetings held throughout South Africa have covered the most pressing requirements of air law (Civil Aviation Regulations), weather conditions (meteorology), navigation and airspace rules, safety assessments, an

While some uncertainty still exists about the issue of the management of trackless mobile machines (TMM) on surface mines, South African surface mining association Aspasa is taking no chances and is walking some of its members through the process to test and ensure compliance with legislation.

Recently, Aspasa took a fact-finding tour of PPC’s large Dwaalboom quarry site where some of the measures in place where tested and checked to ensure the highest levels of compliance with current and future legisla

Metso’s Shaorui business has introduced its first range of mobile crushing and screening equipment especially designed for the price and quality conscious mid-market segment.

Utilising Metso’s proven technologies and long experience in track-mounted equipment, the new range offers various solutions ideal for quarry contracting and demolition applications.

“The Chinese market for mobile crushing and screening equipment is one of the fastest growing markets in aggregates today. This is an exciting laun

A Palestinian customer has recently purchased an ELKON concrete batching plant for its ready-mix business.

A representative from the unnamed company visited ELKON's 65,000m2 production site in Turkey prior to making the order.

ELKON has 15 different manufacturing lines with fully automated welding, cutting, grinding and painting robots in its factories.

After being impressed with the technology at ELKON's manufacturing site, the Palestinian company decided to order an ELKOMIX-100 Quick Master Dry

CASE Construction Equipment hopes to build its share of the European bulldozer market up to between 7.5% and 12% by 2025.

Currently the US-headquartered company sells around 100 machines in Europe per year, according to Lars Midderhoff, dozer and grader product specialist at CASE CE Europe. He estimates the total annual volume of all dozers sold in the region at around 2,500.

CASE competes in the Europe dozer sector with the ‘Big Three’ of Caterpillar, Komatsu and Liebherr.

Since 2014, the CASE and

Growth opportunities in the global construction additives sector will be promising over the next six years, a new survey has found.

A global uptick in construction activities, stringent building codes and environmental standards, and increasing usage of concrete admixtures are key factors driving the global construction additives market revenues towards US$16.97bn by 2025, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan. This is also creating high demand for products such as superplasticisers and iron-oxide

The UK construction industry continued to display signs of weakness in the second quarter of 2019, according to a survey of the supply chain’s product manufacturers, contractors, civil engineers and SME builders.

The survey, conducted by industry body the Construction Products Association (CPA), found that growth in the sales of construction products during Q2 was reported by 20% of heavy side manufacturers and only 9% of light side manufacturers. Only 5% of civil engineering contractors and 4% of SME

LafargeHolcim has announced the first US rollout of a reduced CO2 cement that it has developed jointly with Solidia Technologies.

The two companies have been working together since 2013 to develop the technology that they claim reduces the environmental footprint of pre-cast concrete.

LafargeHolcim and US start-up Solidia are supplying EP Henry’s Wrightstown, New Jersey paver and block plant with the new reduced CO2 cement.

Solidia has developed a new binder made from raw materials similar to tho

Dynamic Weigh Systems (DWS) has been appointed the sole agent for the VEI Group line of on-board weighing and payload management systems in southern Africa.
According to Ivan van Heerden, managing director of DWS, VEI’s non-load-cell weighing technologies offer accuracies of between 99 and 100% on properly calibrated machinery. In fact, the technology has been licensed as “legal for trade” in Europe and has been granted National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) approval in South Africa for se

Sandvik’s chief executive officer Björn Rosengren is to step down next year and will join Swiss-Swedish robotics and engineering group ABB Ltd as CEO, the companies said in separate statements.

Rosengren will join ABB in February next year, ABB said. He will take over from acting ABB CEO Peter Voser in March, with Voser reverting to his position as chairman of the board at ABB, according to the company’s statement.

Voser took over temporarily as head of ABB after Ulrich Spiesshofer left suddenly in

SeaRock – a new joint venture between UK-based Aggregate Industries and Earlcoate construction – has completed an impressive delivery of armour stone to protect Dorset, south-west England’s picturesque West Bay, for principle contractor Bam Nuttall. The project was part of a £9 million coastal defence project, funded by Defra, West Dorset Council and Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee.

West Bay, on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, had been eroding rapidly, but SeaRock’s delivery of 36,0

CRH, the Ireland-headquartered global building materials group, has completed the latest phase of its share buyback programme, returning a further €350 million of cash to shareholders.

Between 29 April and 7 August 2019, 12.2 million ordinary shares were repurchased on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Dublin at an average discount of 0.75% to the volume weighted average price over the period.

This brings total cash returned to shareholders under our ongoing share buyback programme to €1.35 billi

First Graphene, the leading supplier of high-performing, bulk graphene products for the construction and other industries, has launched a new platform to support its growing base of international customers and stakeholders.

The new website, www.firstgraphene.net, is an opportunity for visitors to develop a deeper understanding of the potential of graphene and its applications, which include graphene-reinforced concrete used in building projects, and as a fire retardant in commercial and residential prope

In recent years, several South African quarries have been audited for their diesel rebate systems and their refund claims have been disallowed mainly because their record-keeping has been found wanting. To maximise claim eligibility, quarry managers need to improve their level of compliant logging and adherence to the relevant legislation. By Munesu Shoko.
South African Revenue Services’ (SARS) audits of company diesel rebate claims have exposed a costly trend. According to Andrew Hancock, consultant at C