Quarry Products

Pioneering carbon negative aggregate specialist Carbon8 Aggregates is set to more than double production after gaining planning permission to build a second manufacturing facility at Avonmouth, near Bristol, southwest England.

Work on the €5.1 million (£4 million) project will begin later this year and the plant is expected to be fully operational by early 2016, more than doubling Carbon8’s ability to meet rising construction industry demand for its high quality, lightweight aggregates.

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Germany-based cement sector companies such as Loesche and ThyssenKrupp are offering their eco-friendly technology in Vietnam. Loesche, which operates cement mills in the country, hopes to attract more partners. Meanwhile, second-generation cement grinding solutions will be sold by ThyssenKrupp, which is looking for domestic partners for this purpose. The solutions are currently being used by ThyssenKrupp at its Cong Thanh cement plant in Thanh Hoa. Knauf Vietnam, which will complete its US$40.5 million plan

Financial analyst Darryll Castle is the new CEO of South African cement manufacturer PPC, effective 12 January 2015. Castle was previously COO of mining firm Metorex, and before that CEO of Trafigura Mining Group and Anvil Mining, with significant experience in various parts of Africa. The appointment is tied to a board reshuffling prompted by a conflict with former CEO Ketso Gordhan who left in September 2014.

HeidelbergCement, the German building materials producer, has restarted cement milling operations at its plant near Donetsk in Ukraine. The company also hopes to resume clinker production. According to HeidelbergCement CEO Bernd Scheifele, logistics is the plant's biggest problem as roads and railway lines are destroyed.

China-based China Resources Cement has been granted a US$64.49 million (HKD 500 million) loan, with the repayment to the granting bank to be settled within three years. Following the approval, the cement firm will be given one-month withdrawal period. Under the loan agreement, the parent firm of China Resources Cement, China Resources, is required to hold at least 51% issued share capital of its cement subsidiary. A breach to the contract will be taken if China Resources has failed to do.

Lafarge has been ranked first in the Investor of the Year category of the Moscow Times Awards 2014 awards. The French cement manufacturing giant was recognised for the launch of its cement plant in the Kaluga region (Central FD) in May 2014. The two million tonnes/year capacity site is the largest investment project by the company in Russia, and is said to have helped to strengthen Lafarge’s market position in the Kaluga region.

The Angolan government is to begin limiting the import of cement into the local construction sector from 2015, excluding border provinces such as Cabinda, Cuando Cubango and Cunene. Angola's Construction Minister, Waldemar Pires Alexandre, said the provinces each have an annual import quota of 150,000tonnes. The move is being taken as a result of higher production capacity of 8 million tonnes against a demand of 6.6 million tonnes.

Egypt-based Suez Cement will invest US$83.74 million (EGP 600 million) in 2015 to allow two of its cement plants south of Cairo to be powered by coal, negating the country’s natural gas supply shortage.