News

Albert Manifold is the new group chief executive of CRH, following the retirement of Myles Lee after 32 years with the group including five years as finance director and five years as chief executive.

CRH chairman Nicky Hartery said: “We wish Myles well in his retirement and thank him sincerely for his outstanding contribution to CRH over 32 years of service, and for his excellent stewardship of CRH through the recent global financial crisis. As Albert takes up the role of chief executive, we look forwa

As part of its global expansion plan for its services centre network, Metso plans to build a state-of-the-art service and repair facility in Mesa, Arizona, United States. The new facility will be integrated with its existing Metso operations in the area and is expected to be operational during the fourth-quarter of 2014.

facility has been designed around the installed equipment base in the region and the customers' needs, which include service and repairs to large-scale grinding mills, crushers and scree

Powerscreen has said that it will be present at Intermat Middle East, which runs from 14–16 January 2014 in Abu Dhabi.

Rajen Khoda, director of sales said: “Powerscreen sees the Middle East as an important market and feel attending Intermat Middle East is a good opportunity to get closer to the local distributors and customers.”

French construction materials group Saint-Gobain has signed a €2.5 billion undrawn credit line agreement with 26 banks with a reimbursement date in December 2018.

The line replaces another due for repayment in 2015. The group also negotiated an extension of a €1.50 billion credit line due in December 2017 to December 2018 with 27 banks. The €2.5 billion credit line has two options for extension.

Lafarge Cement (part of the French Lafarge group) is going to build another cement plant in Russia.

It will be located in south-western part of the Krasnodar region (South), in the Krymsk district.

RUB 18 billion (€397.1 million) will be invested in the project.

Stage 1 of the plant is expected yield 2 million tonnes of cement/year.

To reinforce underground structures during renovation works in the basement of Les Halles in Paris, France, the Paris public transport group RATP called on Holcim.

The French branch of the Swiss cement group injected its Spinor A20 product, CEM III/C cement and a plastifying agent into the structures.

Spinor A20 is milk-based, does not pollute and meets the special geological conditions of the project.

Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus will provide BYR 200bn (€15.35 million for development of Sitnitskoye granite deposit in the Brest region and construction of a road metal plant there.

Reserves of the deposit are estimated at about 9 million m³ a year. The project is due to be implemented by late 2015. Over 1,200 new jobs may be created.

Toj Road, Tajikistan, is to build a plant for production of asphalt and processing of broken stone in Sughd province.

The plant's design capacity is 7,000tonnes of asphalt and 7,000tonnes of broken stone/year. The plant's equipment and machinery will be purchased in South Korea and Germany.

According to a report from the Portuguese Construction Industry Federation (Fepicop), the local sector continues to underperform, with concrete consumption dropping 25.2% in 2013 up to October year-on-year.

Fepicop represents 9,000 companies operating in the construction sector, and it says that the concrete drop was impacted by a lack of construction projects in the country, both in the public and private sectors.

Usage rates point to the worst performance of the last 40 years, and in 2012, concrete

Holcim (New Zealand) is planning to construct two 30,000tonne import terminals at Auckland and Timaru under its NZD 100 million (€60.13 million) investment programme.

Construction of the terminals is likely to begin in 2014, and once fully operational, Holcim will close its Westport cement plant, which will affect some 120 jobs.

Cement usage in Spain during 2013 will have dropped 20% to below the 11 million tonnes mark, according to figures from sector association Oficemen, taking the accumulated drop in the last six years to 80%.

There is already a forecast that in 2014 there will be further drops of around 7% or 8% to around 10 million tonnes, making the consumption per head just 220kg, levels last seen in 1962.

At the end of November 2013, consumption was at just 10.2 million tonnes, which is 20% down on a year earlier and

Mordovcement is completing the installation of FPB 1314-20 mobile crusher by FAM at the chalk warehouse of its dry cement plant.

The works, carried out by Tekhspetsservis, will stabilise the equipment operations, and in the event of an unexpected stoppage of the conveyor belt, limestone is to be supplied directly to the crusher from the quarry by trucks.

The government of the Republic of Tuva in Siberia, Russia, is planning to build the first cement plant in the region.

The plant will be based on the Karachatsky clay deposit (6 million tonnes in reserve) and Khairykansky limestone deposit (19 million tonnes in reserve).