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Komatsu, the world’s second-biggest maker after Caterpillar of mining and construction equipment, says it faces another tough year ahead, reports Bloomberg.

Coming just a week after Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman tipped another difficult trading year for the US giant in a filmed interview with Fortune magazine, the Komatsu forecast is a further sign of poor prospects for global aggregates and mining markets, as falling commodity prices cool customers’ investment plans.

“Demand will probably be lower

Cemex has published a new book titled Earth’s Legacy: Natural World Heritage. The new book is the latest in a more than two-decade tradition of Cemex’s Conservation Book Series. Packed with stunning photographic images, this latest read from the Mexican building materials’ giant looks to enhance readers’ comprehension and concern for the conservation of planet Earth’s culturally arresting and naturally diverse World Heritage sites. This year’s Cemex book volume is presented in collaboration with the United

More than 850 exhibitors, including 275 from overseas, drew thousands to the 8th edition of Excon, South Asia’s largest construction equipment and technology fair.

The five-day event staged at the Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre in Bengaluru, south India included the latest equipment models in earthmoving, road construction, tipper trucks and concrete. There were also large scale displays of newer crushing, screening and sand washing equipment by Indian and foreign manufacturers.

Majo

Atlas Copco recently secured the first sale of its new ‘Rock Buggy’.

Purchased by Glebe Stone Sales, in Ancaster, near Grantham, central England, the Rock Buggy comes out of Atlas Copco’s Dimensional Stone Industry portfolio and is a product of the company’s acquisition of Perfora, an Italian company based in Bagnolo, near Turin. The compact mobile drill rig, with a novel three-way steering system, is said to offer versatility to the operator as well as high capacity and accuracy of cut.

Glebe Stone i

An Estonian contracting company is reaching impressive targets using equipment it has acquired through Wihuri, Metso’s new distributor in the country.

“Being a Caterpillar dealer, we have a lot of synergy with Metso, just thinking our role as the manufacturer of diesel engines for all track-mounted units,” says Jan Berkovitch, country manager of Wihuri in Estonia.

Sandvik Construction in Russia has recently supplied the Sinarsky Quarry with a new modular crushing and screening plant.

The plant is being used to expand the company’s aggregates production, aiming to double its capacity to an impressive 1.2–1.8 million tonnes of accurately sized aggregates/year.

The Sinarsky Quarry is located in the Kurgan Region (Urals) of Russia, and it has recently celebrated the new plant becoming fully operational.

Having invested over €2 million on the plant, the plan to

RESTORE is a project working to bring nature back after minerals extraction in north-west Europe. Debra Royal, a member of the RESTORE project team, discusses its vital work.

There are some 7,200 quarries across north-west Europe, representing 250,000hectares (ha) worth of potential to supply the minerals necessary to support the developing economy in the European Community and provide us with the day-to-day products on which we depend – from toothpaste, to construction materials, to glass production. Ho

Colin Nottage, director of the UK-based Influential Management Group (img), talks about the health and safety benefits of controlling noise in quarries.

When I first became actively involved in health and safety many years ago, I can always remember my grandfather telling me stories (or pulling my leg more like) about some of his health and safety experiences during his 40-year career working within industry.

While there remains low demand for aggregates in Italy, there is much needed growth in domestic construction equipment sales. Guy Woodford reports

The Italian aggregates sector has been depressed since the global economic crisis hit – with much of southern Europe, including Italy, among the worst casualties.

Simon Trahair-Davies, partner at Stephens Scown LLP, looks at an interesting and unusual case that reached the English High Court recently.

Any mine or quarry operator knows that an issue always requiring careful planning and attention is what will happen to the site when the operation ceases?
No operator can simply leave an abandoned quarry or pit as a blot on the landscape. The restoration of the site, so that it meets safety and aesthetic standards, is simply one of the obligations of being in the bu

From a bare job site, Volvo Construction Equipment machines helped build the Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport in eastern Australia.

Toowoomba, also known as the ‘The Garden City’ because of its flourishing flower population and 150 parks and gardens, lies in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, located 127km west of Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane. Toowoomba’s population of 165,000 makes it Australia’s second-most populous inland city.

Pakistan’s cement sector posted an overall growth of 5.46% during July-November 2015, according to national media reports. Local sales are also reported to have risen by 15.64% on-year, while cement exports dropped 26.58% from 1.26 million tonnes to 0.93 million tonnes.

Semen Padang’s marketing director, Pudjo Suseno, expects cement demand on the Indonesian island of Sumatra to grow by 16.6% in 2016.

Sales in Sumatra during the first ten months of 2015 were at 10.4 million tonnes, up 2.3% from a year ago. For 2016, the firm is maintaining exports at around 4-5% from production.

Meanwhile, sales in the overall Indonesian market are expected to grow by 5.5-6% in 2016. For 2015, sales in Kalimantan and Java dropped compared to a year ago, while cement sales grew in Su

HeidelbergCement, the German-owned building materials producer, has recently finished the merger of its Romanian subsidiaries: Carpat Beton, Carpat Agregate and Carpatcement. As a result of the move, the new firm will be named HeidelbergCement Romania.

Holcim Belgique, the Belgian subsidiary of Swiss cement group Lafarge Holcim, has revealed plans to close five concrete plants in the Flanders region of Belgium - in Bruges, Herentals, Izegem, Ostend and Furnes. In total, 70 jobs are reported to be under threat. According to the company, this is due to overcapacity in the Belgian concrete market.

Georgina Carlo-Paat, the first woman Master in the UK Marine Aggregate Dredging Sector, has recently completed her first tour of duty aboard Cemex UK Marine aggregate dredger, the Sand Heron.

Carlo-Paat is in command of one of four Cemex dredgers that operate in waters around the UK and near Continent, which provide approximately 18% of Cemex aggregates, used in concrete and construction projects throughout the country.

Her career at sea started in 1990 when she was the ship’s cook on the USS Gopher

Bangladesh-based MI Cement Factory (MI Cement) intends to expand its production capacity to 16,000 tonnes/day by 2020. Aiming to be the nation's top cement producer in the next five years, the company plans to lift its production capacity to 10,000 tonnes/day by December 2016 from the current capacity of 6,000 tonnes/day. In partnership with a Slovakian company, MI Cement will introduce a new plastering product in early-2016. It also aims by 2020 to have its own clinker manufacturing facility.

China-based Citic Heavy Industries has won an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a cement plant in the Cambodian city of Kampot. Once completed, the plant will have a daily output of 5,000 tonnes - creating the largest single cement production plant in the country. The project is a joint venture between Thailand-based Siam City Cement Public Co Ltd and Cambodia-based Chip Mong Insee Cement Corp (Insee Cement). Around US$ 262 million is to be invested in the project. The EPC co

Gröfuþjónusta Steins, a contractor based in southern Iceland, has taken delivery of a Case 695ST backhoe loader from newly appointed Case Icelandic sub-dealer Vélaborg Vörumeðhöndlun, in collaboration with Danish dealer S.D. Kjærsgaard.

The two companies have signed an agreement which gives Vélaborg Vörumeðhöndlun direct access to Case equipment, service support and parts backup offered by S.D. Kjærsgaard. Under this agreement, Vélaborg Vörumeðhöndlun is now the sole distributor for Case equipment in Ic

Layoffs at Italian cement maker Italcementi will be 538 not 1,080, according to Italian labour undersecretary Teresa Bellanova.

The deal to halve the number of previously earmarked job losses among Italcementi's workforce of 3,000 was agreed by the government, unions and management ahead of the company’s €3.7 billion takeover by German rival HeidelbergCement, the world's second-biggest cement producer.

The less severe job cuts will allow HeidelbergCement to expand operations in the Mediterranean, inc