Quarry Products

For 2015, Bosowa Group of Indonesia is allocating US$500 million (€421.25 million) for the construction of some cement plants to beef up its output capacity.

Over the following three years, the plants would help Bosowa Group increase its cement output capacity from only 3 million tonnes currently, to 12 million tonnes.

The company's cement plants are being constructed in West Papua's Sorong, Central Java's Rembang, East Java's Banyuwangi, Banten's Ciwandan and South Sulawesi's Maros.

One of the founding members of US-based aggregate processing and asphalt road building equipment giant Astec industries has died.

Latterly Vice President of National Accounts, Erbie Gail Mize helped create Chattanooga-based Astec in 1972. His responsibilities through the years have also included VP of Engineering for Astec, Executive VP for Astec, over Sales and Marketing for Astec asphalt plants and COO for Astec.

Mize, who died on Tuesday 6 January 2015, attended the University of Tennessee of Chatt

The Russian aggregates industry is on the verge of a serious crisis due to sanctions imposed by the West following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Eugene Gerden reports. The trade sanctions imposed on Russia are biting hard. The huge nation’s military intervention in Ukraine has already resulted in the West’s ban on the supplies of certain equipment and technologies to Russia from abroad and the restric¬tion on imports of some types of aggregates, crucial for the Russian construction industry.

CRH, the international building materials group, has revealed a 2014 acquisition and investment spend of €190 million, reflecting completion of 21 transactions. On the divestment front, the Group completed 16 transactions and realised total disposal proceeds of €350 million.

“In August 2014 we announced a multi-year €1.5 billion to €2 billion divestment programme; the proceeds of €0.35 billion generated in 2014 demonstrate that this programme is well underway,” said Albert Manifold, CRH Chief Executive.

Hope Construction Materials, the UK’s leading independent supplier of cement and concrete, is investing €17.85 million (£14 million) to boost production at its Hope Works cement plant.

The company, which celebrated its second boom year of cement production on 7 January 2015, has kicked off several major capital projects which will help improve the plant’s sustainability, improve the efficiency of the operation and help to secure future supplies for construction.

Hope has owned and operated the cement

Miller Argent’s Ffos-y-fran mining facility in South Wales has reached the landmark figure of five million tonnes of processed coal. After seven years of refining its processes, the huge land reclamation project based in Merthyr Tydfil now produces up to a million tonnes of coal/year.

Much of the finished product is used to fuel nearby Aberthaw Power Station, which generates enough electricity to power five cities the size of Cardiff. Port Talbot Steelworks is also a beneficiary, using the fuel to prod

Global demand for industrial silica sand is forecast to advance 5.6% a year to 289 million tonnes in 2018, according to US-based business research company, Freedonia Group.

Accelerations in construction spending and manufacturing output worldwide are expected to drive growth in important silica sand-consuming industries, including the glass, foundry, and building products sectors.

Particularly rapid gains are projected for the hydraulic fracturing market as horizontal drilling for shale oil and gas r