News

Danish based company FLSmidth, which supplies the minerals and cement industries globally, has released its interim results for Q2 2013.

The group, which supplies everything from engineering, single machines and complete processing plants, to maintenance, support services and operation of processing, says revenues increased 14% in the quarter, while the total order intake declined by 22%.

During the last three months FLSmidth has undergone a health check of its strategy, and the conculsion is “clear.”

A contract to supply aggregate for the under-construction A1 motorway in Poland has been awarded to Polish aggregate company DSS that is currently in administration and its unit Kielecka Kopalnia Surowców Mineralnych.

The contract, which is worth PLN 25.30mn (€5.98 million), is to be completed by the end of November 2013.

DSS had net loss of PLN 27.57 million on revenue of PLN 12.51 million in the first quarter of 2013. The results deteriorated from PLN 3.57 million of net loss and PLN 32.53 million o

According to the research institute GfK, Austria's construction related markets suffered from poor weather conditions in the first half of 2013.

The garden season was delayed due to the cold weather in March 2013, leading to 6.7% lower sales in the first six months of 2013 compared to the same period of the previous year.

The building and construction wood sector was also delayed due to the weather, and the peak season was in May instead of April 2013. This caused the sector to decrease by 5.4% in t

Swiss cement manufacturer Holcim plans to use lignite instead of hard coal to produce energy at its Siggenthal plant in Switzerland from later in 2013.

The move has been criticised by environmental associations, as lignite produces more CO2 and less energy than hard coal.

The plant will be supplied with 1,500tonnes of lignite per week, and Holcim is to construct a new steel silo for storage and two additional platforms for the supply trains.

Holcim has made the change for economic and ecological re

Slovak stone masonry company Mramor is considering to create with the Chinese businessman Liu Longjun a joint venture, which would focus on importing natural stone from China to the Central Europe.

While Liu Longjun is keen to gain access to the European market, Mramor hopes to secure a supply of cheap high quality natural stone, which it would then sell further to smaller stone masonry companies in Slovakia.

While there are no firm plans in place yet, the investment could amount to several millions

According to Ivan Andreev, the executive director of Bulgarian mining chamber BMGK, mineral resource production in the country fell by 7% on year in 2012, equivalent to a drop of 6.28 million tonnes. Most mining sub-sectors saw declines in output, with the exception of natural stone materials, which was up by 10%, and metallic mineral resources, which rose by 1%.

Total mineral resource production for 2012 reached 85.654 million tonnes.

Total value of production rose by 7.1% to reach BGN 2.97 billion

The European Commission has initiated a formal investigation regarding the Aggregates Levy, which has been welcomed by the British Aggregates Association (BAA).

The BAA is of the opinion that the £2 €2.33) per tonne tax on the commercial exploitation of sand, rock and gravel is illegal and has forced some quarry operators out of business.

The tax was introduced in 2002 and a long legal fight by the BAA has resulted in a Court of Appeal hearing on 8 October, 2013.

Austrian company SBM Mineral Processing (SBM) is to take over the concrete segment of the insolvent Austrian industrial plant engineering company Doubrava in Attnang-Puchheim, Upper Austria.

Insolvent Doubrava is disposing of decades of know-how in the field of manufacturing high-quality concrete plants.

“Acquiring this know-how ideally supplements the product portfolio of SBM Mineral Processing,” according to the owners of SBM, KR Erwin Haider, KR Mag. Heinrich Obernhuber and the company Krünes Cons

At the International Mining Exhibition in Acapulco, Mexico (16-19 October), one of the most important trade fairs for the mining industry in Latin America, the Beumer Group says it will be presenting its extensive expertise in conveyor and loading equipment. Building materials and raw materials are just some of the items to be extracted and processed using solutions from Beumer, says the company.

The Beckum,Germany-based group will present solutions for the bulk materials industry at the exhibition (Stan

Russia’s Evraz Kachkanarsky Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise (Evraz KGOK, a subsidiary of Evraz Group) has completed the first phase of its project to increase its crushed stone shipping capacity.

The project started in April 2013 with investments amounting to RUB 17 million (€387,067.24), and the first phase featured delivering a heavy vehicle complex; a standby storage for crushed stone, and a shipment fiscal metering complex.

ArcelorMittal has signed a £2.4 million (€2.34 million) deal with Weir Minerals to supply additional tailings pumps for its mine at Krivoy Rog, Ukraine. The pumps will be used to transport tailings (fine particles of iron ore too small for processing) to be deposited. Weir Minerals will supply two different sizes of the heavy-duty, high-capacity slurry pump, the Warman UY-GHPP (the 3m diameter 28/24) and the Warman HGY-AHP 2.84m diameter 20/18, within the order.

The Taivalkoski unit of Oulu Vocational College (OSAO) in the Oulu region of north-east Finland has established a new training programme in mining and quarrying to serve the industry's growing need for skilled workforce. The unit has invested in a fully automated, track-mounted Metso Lokotrack crushing plant (the first educational institution in Finland to provide such a plant for its students) and it will be used in education after being inaugurated in October 2013. OSAO is a multi-industry vocational coll