News

Dutch commodities trading firm Vitol has agreed to acquire a further 50% of VALT, the bitumen (asphalt) joint-venture it established in 2016 with Sargeant Marine, a Netherlands-based asphalt trading, storage and transportation business.

On completion, VALT will be 100% owned by Vitol and will be integrated into Vitol’s core trading business.

Vitol says the acquisition will make it a leader in the trading, storage and marine transportation of asphalt products around the world, with a dedicated fleet of

Eagle Materials CEO Dave Powers is to retire as an officer of the company effective from 1 July.

Powers, 68, will remain on the board of directors at the US company which manufactures and distributes Portland cement, gypsum wallboard and recycled gypsum paperboard, concrete, sand and aggregates.

Current president and COO Michael Haack will succeed Powers as CEO. The company says the move represents the culmination of a multi-year succession plan and a comprehensive set of transition preparedness step

The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) has promoted Michele Stanley to vice president of government and regulatory affairs.

Stanley has been with NSSGA for over four years, and the US trade body says that in that time has helped grow the association into a leading advocate for the aggregates industry and infrastructure investment. She will be charged with leading efforts to advance public policies that protect and expand the safe, environmentally responsible use of aggregates that build Am

CEMEX has reached a binding agreement to sell its white cement business, including its Buñol cement plant in Spain, to Turkish building material company Çimsa Çimento Sanayi Ve Ticaret.

The agreed price for the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is US$180mn. CEMEX says it currently expects to sign the final agreement during April and close the divestment in the second half of 2019.

The proposed divestment does not include CEMEX’s white cement business in Mexico as well as the investment i

Continental has launched a new cut-resistant compound for its RDT-Master tyre that is used on Rigid Dump Trucks (RDTs).

The compound was developed for rough and abrasive applications where tyres have to withstand sharp gravel, rocks and stones.

Continental says that demands placed on off-the-road tyres (especially at mining and construction sites) are constantly increasing, but at the same time tyres must be individually customised to their respective fields of application. It adds that the new RDT-M

The UK-based Nature After Minerals (NAM) programme will be running a series of training courses in 2019. These will be:

Tuesday 4th June – Creation of Reedbeds at RSPB Langford Lowfields, Nottinghamshire

Tuesday 9th July – Managing Water Margins and Islands for Biodiversity at RSPB Middleton Lakes, Staffordshire

Wednesday 18th September – Woodland Creation and Establishment at AI Bardon Hill Quarry, Leicestershire

Tuesday 15th October – Delivering Biodiversity through Minerals Planning at Tarmac

CEMEX has reached a binding agreement to sell its aggregates and ready-mixed concrete assets in the North and North-West regions of Germany to GP Günter Papenburg AG for approximately €87 million.

The Mexican headquartered global building materials supplier currently expects to sign a final agreement for the sale of assets during April 2019 and close this divestment during the second quarter of 2019.

The CEMEX assets in Germany being divested consist of four aggregates quarries and four ready-mix faci

The Construction Products Association (CPA), the trade body representing construction product manufacturers and distributors in the UK, is to restructure its senior management.

The CPA says the restructure comes amid a current market environment that has been very challenging as new companies and its existing members look at reducing discretionary spending.

The CPA says that, facing up to this challenge, it has been managing its overheads, removing and reducing costs wherever possible, and also exami

HM Treasury has set out the terms of reference for the government review of the controversial UK Aggregates Levy.

The review was first announced in February, and HM Treasury says it will report back and announce any next steps from the review by the end of the year.

The Aggregates Levy was introduced in the UK as part of the Finance Act 2001 and came into force in April 2002. It is a tax imposed upon the commercial exploitation of rock, sand and gravel in the UK. The levy has been largely unchanged si

UK plant hire company GCE Hire Fleet has added two new Volvo CE A45G articulated dump trucks (ADTs) to its park of predominantly Volvo-badged equipment.

The A45G - which can be used for quarrying, mining and heavy infrastructure applications - has a carrying capacity of 41 tonnes, a heaped capacity of 26.2m³ using the overhung tailgate option, and a maximum speed of 57kph.

“We have a long association with Volvo Construction Equipment products operating excavators, loading shovels and articulated haule

Liebherr-France SAS in Colmar, north-east France, has put a new assembly line into operation. It is based on the principles of lean management, and will thus contribute to further improvements in quality and productivity. Overall, the company has invested €5 million in the XY-metre-long production line.

The main task of the new line is to produce the latest generation of Liebherr crawler excavators, which was launched on the market worldwide this year as the ‘Generation 8’. The product line consists of t