News

Cemex UK is about to complete a £1.5 million (€1.75 million) upgrade of its Cambusmore Aggregate plant in Callandar, County Perthshire, Scotland, increasing its capacity by 15%; minimising waste and reducing energy consumption by 10% and maintenance costs by 20%.

The new plant will improve the safety of colleagues as the 30-year -ld plant with potential structural problems, poor access and lots of working at height has been replaced with a new modern production plant with easy access consisting of

Sandvik has launched a new website focusing on their market leading range of mobile crushers and screening equipment: www.sandvikmobiles.com.

The company says the new, dedicated website reflects the growing demand for Sandvik’s mobile crushing and screening products worldwide. Driven by the need to provide information to customers specifically looking for mobile solutions, the site will provide a clean, modern layout and intuitive navigation system, enabling quick access to product specific pages. Jaw,

Vallourec is investing in additional iron ore processing equipment to deliver increased efficiencies at the Barreiro Plant in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Prior to the delivery of iron ore to the blast furnace the existing equipment on site was not able to liberate or separate the highly clay bound fines from the lump ore on the more difficult ROMs.

This led to final lump ore being sent onto the smelting process with higher levels of contamination being retained. The knock-on effect on the smelting process

William Gagie has joined Fisher German’s Ashby, England, office after 20 years with Cemex.

The chartered surveyor has been recruited to expand Fisher German’s capacity to support existing clients but also grow its portfolio of customers in the minerals sector.

He said: “I think the experience I have gained in the minerals sector will help Fisher German strengthen and develop in this area. It also has a national reputation for its expertise in estate management and that is the perfect foundation for e

Cemex is supplying 150,000tonnes of cement for the construction and expansion of a four-lane, 50km stretch of highway that connects Cañas to Liberia in the Guanacaste province, a crucial route for Costa Rica’s Pacific Corridor. The project, which also includes 18 bridges, is expected to reach completion in 2015.

Guanacaste is the country’s largest province and a hub for tourism. This project is expected to have a strong effect on regional and national development as it helps to increase tourism and the c

The Mineral Products Association (MPA) says that UK third quarter figures support provisional GDP estimates that construction activity is starting to recover

The organisation says that aggregates, asphalt and ready-mixed concrete sales volumes showed significant growth in the third quarter, ranging from +9% to +11%, compared with the third quarter of 2012. The improvements of the second quarter have been sustained through the third quarter.

Underlying aggregates and ready-mixed concrete trends are now

About 260 jobs are being created by a US global engineering company Terex in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Terex, which manufactures equipment used in the construction, quarrying and mining industries, has factories in Dungannon and Omagh, and the move is part of a £21.7 million (€25.3 million) investment with the jobs being created over the next four years.

The company plans to build new factory space, purchase new equipment and invest in research and development with the help of £2.6 million in

Mexican cement firm Cemex’s strong overseas performance is said to have offset an 11% drop in sales and a 21% fall in Ebitda in Mexico during Q3 2013.
Overall, Cemex consolidated revenues grew year-on-year by 3% in July-September 2013, reaching €2.91 billion, while Ebitda totalled €541.1 million in this same period – up 2% on the third quarter of 2012. These positive results are mostly linked to higher volume sales in the US, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and Asia. Cem

French construction materials group Lafarge is focusing its strategy towards industrial ecology in a bid to reduce its energy dependency by recovering waste.
Energy represents around a third of cement costs. The inauguration of a new workshop for the recovery of shredded solid waste at its Saint-Pierre-La-Cour site in Mayenne, northwest France will use up to 50% of alternative fuels. According to Lafarge, at some sites, such as those in Germany, this substitution rate has reached 60%, while in emerging cou

Reports says that in In Finland, the outlook in the concrete element sector is bleak.

According to Finnish concrete company Lujabetoni, the winter of 2013-2014 will be difficult, and demand for elements may fall by about 10%-15% while the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries RT forecast a slowing down of about 3% for the autumn of 2013, but the decrease may be more.

Meanwhile, it is also reported that Finnish concrete company Betonimestarit has taken its concrete elements to India.

The cement plant which Mexican cement company Cemex has in the Spanish town of Alcanar will restart operations shortly, with two of the three furnaces there reopening already.

The facility has been shut for a year, which resulted in the redundancy or relocation to other sites of 136 of its 166 workers.

Most of the cement produced in Alcanar will go towards export, and there will be 70 or 80 people working at the plant, but they will have a 25% wage cut in accordance with terms agreed previously.

In France, a crushed solid waste unit has been inaugurated at the Lafarge cement- orks in Saint-Pierre la Cour.

The unit allows non-hazardous waste, such as plastics, papers and textiles, to be transformed into fuel. The waste is used to power the furnace during the cement production process. With the new unit, the use of traditional fossil fuels at the cement-works will be cut in half. By 2015, the aim is to reach 75%.

Cement producer Thai TPI Polene Public Company has placed an order with Siemens Drive Technologies, Nuremberg, Germany, for engineering and supply of the power distribution system and drives for the new clinker production line in Saraburi, Thailand.

Siemens will be supplying the drive solutions as well as the switchgear for the high, medium and low-voltage distribution systems. It is also responsible for project management and engineering.

Cement consumption in Spain dropped 21.9% to 10.7 million tonnes between January and September 2013, with the drop in September alone coming to 9.1% according to figures from the industry association Oficemen.

The year began with a fall, of 21.5%, and this trend has continued with double-digit drops which included a 40% decline in March. This follows a 34% fall in consumption in 2012 to 13.5 million tonnes.

Cement production is following a similar trend, with a drop of 18.9% in the January to Septemb