Quarry Products

High cost of landfilling and difficulty gaining permission for new quarries means that soil washing can provide vital resources to the construction market. Claire Symes visited two sites in Switzerland to find out more

On the outskirts of Zurich is an industrial unit that has been transforming contaminated granular material into prime aggregates for the last 15 years. The blue clad building is not a warehouse but is home to what was one of the worlds first soil washing facilities when it opened in 1992.

Titan Cement of Greece has reached an agreement with Kosovo's privatisation authority for the acquisition of the Sharr Beteilingung Group, which owns and operates a cement plant in Sharr. The new acquisition is not expected to have a significant effect in Titan's results this year since the Sharr plant, with an annual production capacity of 600,000tonnes, was already managed by the Greek group's management, under a leasing agreement.

Russian company Glavstroy Ust-Labinsk, a part of the Glavstroy holding company, has resumed construction of a plant to produce aerated concrete products in Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar region in the south-west of the country. Investment in the project is estimated at about €39.55 million, and the planned annual capacity of the plant is 420,000m³ of products, mainly building blocks.

In the first quarter of 2011, the production of cement in the Czech Republic increased by 38% year-on-year to 540,000tonnes. Sales rose by about one third, and the Union of Cement Producers says that the growth was mostly thanks to a low comparison base from 2010 and favourable climatic conditions. However, it expects the consumption of the cement to drop in 2011 with stabilisation possible in 2012. The cement production in the Czech Republic peaked at 4.8 million tonnes in 2007 and has been gradually falli

Increased concrete and aggregates sales in the first three months of 2011 have helped France-based Vicat to record a sales growth of 28.8% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period last year. The company has reported sales of €518million for the period, with a 32% increase in aggregates and concrete sales contributing €180million to the total. The company reported that business was buoyant in emerging markets and there were signs of a gradual recovery in the US too. Vicat said that the si

Lafarge and Anglo Amercian’s subsidiary Tarmac are reported to be planning to sell off £600million (€682million) worth of assets in order to complete their planned merger. The companies are reported to be selling quarries, cement plants and ready mixed concrete facilities in order to satisfy the concerns of the Office of Fair Trading in the UK. The joint venture is expected to submit plans for the restructuring to the authority next month in a bid to gain approval for the deal.