News

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

Global construction materials testing equipment sales exceeded one million units in 2018 - equating to a market value of US$2.5 billion – with industry revenues tipped to grow 4.9% a year until 2027, according to a new study by Future Market Insights (FMI), a leading independent business market research consultancy.

The FMI study claims that the overall growth of the worldwide construction materials testing equipment market can be attributed to growing interest of property buyers in investigating a buil

South African construction and mining equipment sales have declined for a third quarter in a row.

According to figures released by the Construction and Mining Equipment Suppliers’ Association (CONMESA), just 1,292 machines were sold during the period - 1,541 units down from the same period last year. The downward movement marks an acceleration of declines beginning in the last quarter of 2018 when the downward trend began with a drop of 4.65%. This was followed by a steep drop of 14.49% in the first qua

CEMEX Go Innovation, the cutting-edge marine aggregates dredger commissioned by CEMEX, has been officially launched. The traditional ceremony took place at the Damen Shipyards Galati in Romania and was attended by representatives from both CEMEX and Damen.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mark Darren Williams, fleet engineering manager for CEMEX, said: “For CEMEX UK Marine, their management and personnel, today is a milestone in our company history. This new ship represents a significant investment and the firs

It’s great when Health & Safety is going right in your business, but it’s easy to become complacent and relaxed, leading to a drop in standards.

In the latest episode of The Interesting Health & Safety Podcast - titled ‘Look at Your Business When Things are Going Right’ - host Colin Nottage emphasises the importance of challenging things when they are going well by looking more closely at how your employees are operating to make sure you are keeping them accountable, and that they are not letting you do

FLSmidth, a leading global mining and cement product and technology solution supplier, posted strong increases in its revenue and profitability in Q2 2019. The Denmark-headquartered group saw its revenues rise 16% in the quarter to DKK 5.5 billion (€736.88mn). Group EBITA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes & Amortisation) was up 28% to DKK 487 million (€65.24mn), compared to the same three months of 2018.

Further released figures reveal that FLSmidth’s order intake for Q2 2019 stood at DKK 5bn (€669.9mn) –