News

The UK cement industry is building on its long established sustainability credentials having published its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).

The EPD declares the UK cement industry’s life cycle environmental impact and covers 100% of domestically produced cement. It builds on ten years of sustainability information published in annual sustainability performance reports.

Dr Pal Chana, executive director Mineral Products Association (MPA) Cement, said, “This is a great milestone for the

Weir Minerals Europe will add three new service centres to its existing Europe-wide network during 2014 as part of its ongoing investment into aftermarket care.

The company will establish a new facility in Kazakhstan, while service centres in Morocco and Italy were launched earlier this year.

The new facilities build on the company’s network of manufacturing, sales and service bases in key territories across Europe. The centres also complement existing mobile and on-site support functions delivered by

Turkish natural stone firms are planning to export to China more products in 2014.

Turkish companies' export revenue to China amounted to €714.69 million in 2013 and they expect to increase this figure to €2 billion in 2023.

A group of experts has looked at trends in the production and consumption of minerals in the UK over the past 40 years.

The headline findings show that overall, during the past 40-plus years the UK has become increasingly dependent on imports of minerals and minerals-based products, and this is likely to continue and increase as offshore oil and gas reserves run down.

Total UK minerals consumption (production + imports – exports) declined by about 35% between 1970 and 2011 from 619 million tonnes to

The UK’s Mineral Products Association (MPA) is celebrating its fifth birthday.

Created in March 2009 by the merger of the Quarry Products Association, the British Cement Association and The Concrete Centre, MPA’s membership has grown from 266 to 482, thanks to continuously attracting new members, coupled with the affiliations and other close working relationships it has with QPA Northern Ireland, MPA Scotland, British Precast, the British Association of Reinforcement and the Refined Bitumen Association.

Metso's mobile crushing plant, biomass moisture analyser and scrap shear and shredder concept have received prestigious iF Design 2014 Awards.

The jury in one of the world's top product design competitions recognised Metso's products for their design quality, degree of innovation, environmental impact, functionality, safety and branding, among others.

This year's iF design competition had over 3,200 entries in 17 categories to showcase outstanding achievements in product design.

Sandvik Construction has announced that it is to stop production of mobile crushing and screening equipment at its factory in Swadlincote, County Derbyshire, central England.

The move, part of a reorganisation of the company’s UK operations, means that a total of 360 jobs will be affected at the site, of which 160 production roles are to be moved to the company’s other manufacturing facility in Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Sandvik will continue to employ some 80 staff at the Swadlincote

In 2013 the UK-based Breedon Aggregates saw its revenue increase from £173.50 million (€210.51 million) to £224.5 million.
Pre-tax profit rose from £5.6 million to £12.4 million.
The increases are attributed to a surge in materials sales with aggregates sales rising from from 4.3 million tonnes to 6.1million tonnes, while sales of asphalt rose from 1.2 million tonnes to 1.4 million tonnes and sales of ready-mixed concrete rose from 490,000m³ to 620,000m³.
The company is confident that it will record fur

HeidelbergCement has signed a new €3 billion syndicated credit facility with a term of five years to refinance the existing credit facility which would have expired in December 2015.

The revolving credit line was early refinanced due to favourable market conditions. HeidelbergCement was able to execute the new self-arranged facility with significantly improved terms and conditions. There was massive demand from the banking sector to enter the new facility but HeidelbergCement limited the participation ex

Nigeria-based Dangote Group is planning to invest €213.09 million) to build a cement manufacturing plant in Congo. According to a statement, the plant will be located in Yamba and work for the construction of the plant is scheduled to take 30 months. On completion, the plant will be producing 1.5 million tonnes of cement annually.

Consumption of aggregates in Russia stood at 430 million m³ in 2013 (0.8% down from 2012).

The market's value, however, reached RUB 362.30bn (€7.42 billion), which is 4% more than in 2012. Russian factories produced 408.4 million m³ of aggregates (1% up on 2012).

Ruston builds a crushed stone plant in Urupsky district of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (North Caucasus). The plant is designed to produce 2.183 million tonnes of crushed serpentinite rock (some 900,000tonnes/year on average).

The plant is scheduled for launch in March 2016. Over 130 new job positions will be created. The project is supposed to make up for the heavy deficiency of hard and extra-hard crushed stone in the republic. Some 30% of the decorative crushed stone market will be covered. Stage 1

The UK Minerals Product Association (MPA) has signed a service level agreement to provide a wide range of management, administration and technical services to British Precast.

Staff will transfer from British Precast to MPA to ensure that the current working relationships deepen and strengthen.

Andrew Minson, executive director of the MPA’s Concrete Centre, will now also lead and manage the new British Precast team as executive director. Martin Clarke, the former chief executive of British Precast, w

World demand for asphalt is projected to rise 3.6% annually through 2017 from a weak 2012 base to 121 million tonnes (734 million barrels).

According to analyst Mariel Behnke: “Gains will be driven by especially strong growth in consumption in China and other developing countries as they work to improve their transportation infrastructures.”

Mature asphalt markets in developed nations, which declined between 2007-2012, will recover steadily, though in most cases demand will not regain 2007 levels unti