News

Vicat has granted the Geste d'Or Awards to three companies for exemplary operations of upkeep, restoration and renovation of heritage sites.
The awards were granted to three companies using the Prompt cement of Vicat.
Christiane Guichard won the award in the heritage segment for the restoration of the Villa Casamaures, Grenoble, France.
The Grand Prix in the segment of crafts went to Marc Colson for the restoration of the rails of the Pont de Tournus Bridge, Bourgogne, France.
The prize for innovation w

Oran's National Polytechnic School ENPO, Algeria, has signed a partnership with the Algerian branch of Lafarge, with the aim of better preparing students for careers in industry.
The partnership will see a number of collaborative efforts to benefit teaching/research professionals and student engineers, with a diversification in internship and research subjects.

In a bid to reduce air pollution, Bamburi Cement in Kenya has adopted the usage of waste tyres instead of coal as an energy source.
Bigger bag fillers that suck in the dust emitted by the plant have also been installed by Bamburi Cement.

Cementir Holding (Cementir), the Italian cement and construction materials producer and part of the Caltagirone group, has announced its intention of carrying out a five-year capital increase worth up to €300 million in order to support the group's growth strategy, especially in the Far East and North and South America.
In particular, the operation, which is expected to be structured as one or more tranches, may also feature a call option.

In response to companies' strategies to avoid the tax on cement, the Moroccan finance law for 2015 will alter the modalities of the tax so that it is imposed on cement production rather than on cement sales.
This comes after cement groups opted to absorb their concrete subsidiaries to avoid the tax, resulting in a loss in revenue for the treasury from the tax on cement used for concrete production.
Sales of cement to subsidiaries represent approximately 16% of total cement production, proportional to the

In an interview with French publication Le Figaro, Bruno Lafont and Wolfgang Reitzle, respectively the future managing director and president of the entity formed by the merger between French construction materials group Lafarge and Swiss cement group Holcim, have said that the project is on track to be completed during the first half of 2015.
Lafont added that the group is still awaiting approval from competition authorities in other countries, including India, the US and Canada.
In the Le Figaro intervi

Limerick-based Adare Machinery has been appointed by Doosan Construction Equipment as a new authorised Dealer for Doosan Heavy and Bobcat products in Ireland.

Under the new agreement, Adare Machinery has exclusivity for sales and service in Munster and Connacht for Doosan 3-53 tonne crawler and wheeled excavators and the Doosan range of wheeled loader models with bucket capacities from 1.9 to 4.8m³. The company is also a dealer for Doosan wheeled loaders in Leinster but on a non-exclusive basis.

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Terex Trucks has appointed a new Sales and Marketing and Aftermarket team as part of a new investment programme following the firm’s acquisition last year by Volvo Construction Equipment.

The new appointments will help the Motherwell, Scotland-based truck manufacturer’s position itself as a key global competitor in both articulated and rigid dump truck markets.

The team will assume their new positions through January and February 2015.

Kobelco is to build a US$41 million US hydraulic excavator production facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Having re-entered the American market successfully in 2013, having a North American production site will allow the Japanese firm to reduce the production lead-time of machineries for its US customers, and improve its capabilities for meeting market needs.

Site preparation for the US production facility will begin in April 2015 and is expected to be completed in December 2015. Kobelco’s mult

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne have visited Accrington brick works, County Lancashire, north-west England, to mark the restart of production, seven years after the factory was mothballed.

Around £1.4 million (€1.8 million) has been invested and 30 jobs created to bring the works back into production as regional and national demand for bricks continues to rise.

They were hosted by Hanson UK CEO Patrick O’Shea and Stephen Harrison, managing director o

FLSmidth has signed an agreement with a company in the Solix Group to sell all shares in Cembrit Holding, a leading distributor and manufacturer of fibre-cement products in Europe.
The buyer is a consortium of investors headed by Solix Group, whose strategy is to retain and further develop Cembrit as the leading distributor and manufacturer of fibre-cement products in Europe.
Cembrit has been part of the FLSmidth Group since 1927, and its sale concludes FLSmidth's divestment of building materials compan

Lafarge Tarmac has awarded Babcock International Group a £41 million (€52.5 million) five-year contract (with a five-year extension option) to provide a fleet managed service for its heavy mobile equipment (HME) across the UK.
Babcock says the new contract follows an open tender process run by Lafarge Tarmac to secure the best solution for its requirements. Babcock’s independence coupled with ALCAMiE, its proven approach to optimising fleets, was key to this, ensuring that Lafarge Tarmac will benefit from

Indonesian state-owned construction firm Waskita Karya will seek a bank loan of US$338 million for its work on the Pejagan-Pemalang toll project in central Java island. The project is being managed by Pejagan Pemalang Toll Road, a subsidiary of Waskita Karya.

Waskita company secretary Antonius Yulianto Nugroho said the firm has enough cash resources to cover a quarter of its financial commitment on the project and is targeting bank loans to cover the other 75%.

Waskita Karya plans to carry out a bond

In 2014, the accumulated national cement production lines in China hit 1,758, including part of the discontinued lines that have not been removed.

The designed clinker production capacity reached 1.77 billion tonnes, while accumulated capacity grew 4% as compared to 2013.