I’ve been doing a lot of travelling around Europe since the last issue of Aggregates Business Europe and what has struck me is how quarry-based construction equipment manufacturers are still willing to innovate and launch new products on to the market, despite sales remaining flat for much of the continent and the wider international market.
This welcome trend was demonstrated during a trip to Norway to visit a quarry owner near Trondheim who is benefiting from the latest version of a leading sector company’s highly efficient wash plant solution, helping him to deliver a high quality sand product - more of which you’ll read about in ABE September-October 2015. Remaining in Scandinavia, I was also at a quarry near Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, to see a major crushing and screening OEM’s new jaw crusher and screen. They, along with another brand within their parent company group, are also preparing to launch a new telematics system for crushers – which was on the latest jaw crusher model on show to customers and dealers at the Customer Open Days event in Sweden.
Shortly after the Swedish event, I was at a quarry around 90 minutes drive south of Munich in southern Germany seeing another leading crushing and screening OEM’s impressive new crushing and screening models, and hearing from its south Germany dealer how many customers, given the difficult economic climate, are now looking for rental solutions rather than outright machine purchases. Could we be about to undergo a huge rise in the German rental market akin to the success of rental among UK construction equipment customers? We shall see.
With many quarrying sector firms facing an uncertain future in these difficult economic times, the UEPG is still relentlessly lobbying European institutions in Brussels and other stakeholders on issues key to its aggregates industry members based across 30 countries. Aggregates Business Europe Executive Editor Patrick Smith spoke to the organisation’s newly elected president, Jesús Ortiz, about his initial priorities and the UEPG’s future goals.
Meanwhile, the trading sanctions imposed by the West on Russia following its military intervention in Ukraine are said to be playing a key part in lowering demand for aggregates across the vast Eastern European nation, forcing many producers towards bankruptcy. Accumulated aggregates reserves are estimated at more than 50 million m³ - creating what Eugene Gerden reports is a ‘bankruptcy ticking time bomb’ for many domestic producers, whose crushed stone and other aggregates output has already been drastically reduced.
As with new telematics to aid crushing and screening efficiency, software solutions for more efficient processing of quarry customer orders are also becoming increasingly popular among quarry owners and contractors. This issue’s Quarry Profile looks at
Remaining with the efficiency theme, this issue also includes an in-depth look at the remarkable asphalt recycling operation of FM
