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Saudi Arabia-based Qassim Cement reported that its net earnings for 2015 reached SAR 586 million (€142.95 million/US$ 156.14 million), a 4% improvement from SAR 564 million in 2014.

The cement company posted an increase of 4.6% in net earnings year on year from SAR 134 million to SAR 141 million in the fourth-quarter of 2015.

Semen Indonesia aims to increase its cement sales by between 5% and 6% in 2016 by shifting its business focus to the local market.

Suparni, the president director of Semen Indonesia, noted that demand for cement in the local market is expected to increase significantly following commencement of several large-scale public infrastructure projects in Indonesia.

HeidelbergCement has started its Aggregates-CI programme (Continuous Improvement) in order to continuously optimise the operational and commercial working processes in the area of aggregates (sand, gravel and crushed rock).

The new programme follows the margin improvement programme CLIMB Commercial that successfully concluded at the end of 2015.

Aggregates-CI will be implemented at all of the more than 500 production sites worldwide. The company says the process enhancements shall lead to sustainable

In December 2015, Lafarge launched eight BIM (building information modelling) versions of eight of its products and systems.

The BIM solutions relate to precast concrete and ready-mixed concrete.

As well as allowing engineers to determine heat aspects, the solution will allow construction companies to select the texture and colour they desire in order to visualise the final product.

IM is available on Thermedia 0.6 and Thermedia 0.45 ready-mixed concrete; Agilia self-consolidating concrete; the GB

In Vietnam, a four-hectare asphalt emulsion facility worth US$22million (€20.26 million) will be built by France Emulsion, a paving solutions provider, machinery and processes company, in the province of Binh Dinh.

The facility at the Nhon Hoa Industrial Park in An Nhon town has obtained the necessary construction permit approval, and is expected to generate jobs.

KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens, a worldwide manufacturer for the aggregate, construction and recycling industries, has hired Tim Harms as senior sales engineer for crushing and screening products at its Kolberg-Pioneer manufacturing facility.

In his new role, Harms will assume a sales engineering leadership role and act as a resource for the sales engineering staff. He will also help guide equipment selection for potential customers and manage sales opportunities in conjunction with the product managem

CECE (Committee of European Construction Equipment) has welcomed its new leadership team.

The team is made up of Bernd Holz (SVSS, Amman) who succeeds Eric Lepine (Agoria, Caterpillar) as president.

Giampiero Biglia (Unacea, CNH Industrial) moves to first vice president, and Lars-Göran Andersson (SACE, Volvo) has been elected new CECE second vice president.

CECE says it is looking forward to work with the new team, ensuring continuity in the workings of CECE and the strong representation of the sec

Professionals in the Moroccan cement sector expect an end of 2015 with sales up 1-1.5%, after an initial forecast of a drop of 4-5%.

The year was marked with a lack of stability, with sales up 17.22% in August, down 21.17% in September and up 18.25% in October.

The year was also marked by a lot of religious holidays, which hindered sales.

The poor condition of the building market is nonetheless the greatest hindrance to the cement sector.

The last quarter of the year saw a recovery, after a vol

Indonesia's biggest cement producer Semen Indonesia has projected that for 2016 there will be an over 5% hike in the overall cement consumption in the country.

That would compare with the preceding year, when consumption climbed 1% year-on-year from 59.9 million tonnes.

Driving over half of the nation's economy, cement consumption is one of the main local consumption indicators.

The Indonesian Cement Association highlighted that overall cement consumption between January 2015 and November 2015 grew

JSW Group of India, a conglomerate with interests in steel and cement, is planning to venture into the industrial paints market due to high internal demand for steel coatings.

The project may start in Maharashtra at the site of the company in Dolvi.

Meanwhile, the cement business of the company will get an additional INR 20 billion (€278.04 million/US$ 301.96 million) for brownfield expansion over the following 24 months to increase output to 16 million tonnes from 6 million tonnes.

The planned pai

Laos-based Oudomxay Cement is constructing a factory in Oudomxay Province and expects to commission the facility by end-2016. Output from the new factory, which is the third for the company, will be delivered to projects in the provinces of Phongsaly, Luang Namtha and Bokeo and several other areas in the northern region.

In Thailand, BMC Cement Industry Factory (Lion Brand) will operate its factory in February 2016.
The Lao-owned company has been developing the new factory since 2011 and construction is estimated to be completed next month.
Cement produced by the factory will be supplied to provinces in Laos and Thailand.

A new marketing agreement has been agreed between Redbird and Caterpillar in the Europe, Africa and Middle East region.

Redbird, established in 2013, is a pioneer in the acquisition and analysis of aerial data collected by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

The company’s ability to both collect drone data and provide analysis of that data using cloud-based, proprietary algorithms offers significant benefits for customers.

The construction and construction machinery industry has been one of the driving forces of the global economy for years. The new bauma Charity Alliance is intended to highlight the fact that the companies in this sector are actively engaged both in combating hunger and poverty and in promoting education and the environment in the Third World in addition to their day-to-day business.

CRH, the global building materials group, has confirmed total disposal proceeds of nearly €1 billion in 2015. The figure comprises the previously announced sale of its clay and concrete products operations in the UK and the Group’s clay business in the US (€0.43 billion) plus several additional divestments across Europe and the Americas for total proceeds of around €0.53 billion.

Fuel efficiency along with higher productivity are the aims of a major German quarry that produces granite material for a variety of uses. The company took a look at its operations and decided to ask German Caterpillar dealer Zeppelin to help achieve its aims using the latest technology, including Cat VisionLink that allows quarry operators to quickly and easily view all their equipment in a secure web-based application hosted by Trimble.
Caterpillar says that information from Cat equipment allows insight

China has more demand for aggregates than any other nation on earth, but it’s falling amid intense economic pressures. Guy Woodford reports.

According to David Zhao and his team at China Aggregates Net (CAN), which specialises in independent Chinese aggregates market analysis and statistics, the development of the aggregates industry in the world’s most populated country is closely linked to the performance of the domestic construction and construction equipment market.

“With the decrease in natural s

Given demand for increasingly higher-strength steels for a range of earthmoving equipment involved in quarrying and construction, Tata Steel’s new multimillion euro heavy-gauge hot-rolled steel decoiler line – Europe’s largest and most powerful – in Llanwern, near Newport, South Wales, could not have been better timed. Guy Woodford visited the impressive cutting-edge facility.

As soon as you set foot in the giant hanger that houses Europe’s biggest heavy-gauge hot-rolled steel decoiler line, you realise

Import licences in Algeria will first target three products, passenger cars, cement and concrete reinforcing bars, due to their significant financial weight on imports.

Concrete reinforcing bar imports cost US$1.8 billion (€1.66 billion) in 2014 and $1.20 billion in 2015, while passenger car imports represented $4.80 billion in 2014 and $3.9 billion in 2015.

The licence imports will be implemented in such a way as to avoid market disruptions and gradually replace imported products with local products.

In its efforts to invest in alternative source of energy to replace fossil fuels, Irish Cement expects that it will be using used tyres as one of the residual waste materials.

The proposal, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions, concerns Irish Cement's cement kilns in Limerick, and the cement supplier is getting ready to have its environmental licence reviewed by Irish authorities.

At the same time, the company will be applying for a planning permit from Limerick County Council.

The company st