Quarry Products

The Reshenie company anticipates that St Petersburg's market of reinforced concrete structures will grow 13% in 2014.

This is attributed to the growth of prefab home construction. The market of large-panel construction (including production and assembly of reinforced concrete structures) is worth RUB 25 billion (€535.62 million)/year and the market of reinforced concrete structures is worth RUB 7.50 billion (€160.68 million).

There are about 30-40 large producers of reinforced concrete in the city, ac

The Finnish State is to sell Finnish infrastructure and construction company Destia to Ahlström Capital for €148 million.

The ownership no longer bears a strategic significance to the state.

Pekka Haavisto, Finland's Minister responsible for ownership steering, justifies the sale saying that the government decided to support new investments and to slow down the state's running into more debt in the framework budget talks.

Lafarge has sold its cement operations in Ecuador for an enterprise value of US$553 million (equivalent to €405 million) to Union Andina de Cementos (UNACEM).

Lafarge Cementos operates an integrated cement plant of 1.4 million tonnes capacity, located in Otavalo in the north of the country.

This divestment will contribute to Lafarge's objective to reduce net debt below €9 billion in 2014.

This transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

According to Andre Martin, CEO Lafarge Russia and Ukraine, the France-based group plans to increase sales of cement to 700,000tonnes in 2014 against 2013, as it will launch a new plant in the Kaluga region (Central FD).

Sales of non-metallic materials are expected to increase by 30%. The plant in Kaluga region will switch into partial use of alternative fuels (solid waste) from 2015, and in the future, alternative fuels may account for 45% of the enterprise's total consumption. Dry kilns will help to im

In what is said to be a first for the ready mix sector, UK customers are set to benefit from the introduction of new mobile Ultra ready mix concrete plants.

Lafarge Tarmac has invested in two units to strengthen its existing nationwide concrete offering and provide customers with 24-hour security of supply to projects in remote locations.

British independent construction materials company, Hope Construction Materials is on the lookout for new talent to join its £300 million (€370 million) business in the County Derbyshire and County Yorkshire areas.

The company has launched an Apprenticeship Academy which is looking to appoint four new apprentices this year at its quarries at Dowlow near the town of Buxton, County Derbyshire, and Holme Hall, near Rotherham, County Yourksihire and its cement works in the Hope Valley, also County Derbyshire

According to Indriani Siswati from Holcim Indonesia, the cedment company is aiming for its Plant I in Tuban to start grinding clinker t the end June 2014 and for the plant to be commissioned in August 2014.

The plant is presently producing cement but the clinker is being supplied from Cilacap. The output from the plant with capacity of 1.7 million tonnes will be for the Sumatra and East Indonesia market.

The company has a total annual production capacity of 9.1 million tonnes. The firm's Tuban II plan

Turkey's Competition Board (RK) has launched an investigation on the country's cement sector. RK claims that the sector is involved in serious competition issues, such as region and customer sharing, refusing to provide products, and destructive pricing. It adds that the number of complaints have grown in time despite the number of penalties issued on companies.

Lafarge Group has launched a new cement plant with a capacity of 2 millon tonnes/year in the Kaluga region (Central Federal District). Investments are estimated at €500 million, and the cement plant will use dry process technology.