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According to Unicem (The National Union of Quarries and Construction Materials Industries), 30.8 million tonnes of sand and aggregates came out of quarries in France in June 2015, up 2.9% compared to June 2014.

Concrete mixing plants produced 3.5 million m³ of concrete, up 1.2% compared to June 2014.

Production of aggregates in France was down 11% for the first half of 2015 compared to the same period 2014 while production of concrete was down 7.3%.

The Spanish stone producer and distributor Grupo Cosentino has joined forces with ceramics company Lladro to open a new establishment in Milan (Italy).

The new shop, which will be the first that both companies will open in association with another company, is expected to launch on 8 October, 2015.

On 16 September, 2015, Cosentino will open another shop in New York.

It is reported that in India, the Birla and Lodha families' ownership dispute has flared up again, and the dispute now involves one of the biggest cement deals in recent times.

A petition has been filed by the Birla faction in the Calcutta High Court that seeks an injunction over the Birla Corporation’s plans to purchase the cement plants of Lafarge India at Sonadih in Chhattisgarh and Jojobera in Jharkhand.

Hartl Engineering and Marketing has formed Hartl Crusher North America, which is based in Henderson, Nevada.

Martin Hartl was appointed as vice president.

The new US company is a 100% subsidiary of the Austrian-based innovator of mobile crushing and screening equipment, Hartl Crusher, which has 40 years of experience in the crushing and screening sector, and which has a product portfolio of bucket crushers and screeners.

RealMachinery, based at Lempäälä in Finland, has expanded with the purchase of Dae-Tek, the authorised dealer for the Doosan Heavy and Bobcat product ranges in Finland.

RealMachinery, the largest earthmoving machinery rental company in Finland, is retaining the Dae-Tek brand, a long-established and successful dealership for both the Doosan and Bobcat ranges with offices in Kerava, Turku and Kuopio.

The Doosan Heavy range comprises crawler and wheeled excavators, wheeled loaders, articulated dump truck

NCC Recycling the recycling division of the Swedish construction company, has a new facility for the processing of construction and demolition waste in Utby outside of Gothenburg.

Waste from the new facility, which is NCC's first full-service one in Sweden, will be recycled or reprocessed into new materials.

The first waste to be processed in Utby comes from the construction of the Queen Silvia Children's Hospital (Drottning Silvias barn- och ungdomssjukhus).

The Danish Technological Institute (Teknologisk Institut) says it has developed a concrete material with air cleaning properties.

The concrete employs a modified form of titanium dioxide which allows for the removal of harmful mono-nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the air with the aid of light in the visible spectrum.

Previous similar technology is said to have required light in the UV spectrum.

The new material is currently being tested in the pavement on the Fælledvej Street in Copenhagen. Two other de

Cement company Ciments Calcia (Italcementi) is submitting a bid to participate in the COP21 climate change conference to be held in Paris between 30 November and 11 December 2015.

The company has focused its R&D on environmentally friendly construction, and is showcasing its work via demonstrators who will be present on the banks of the River Seine until 4 October 2015, and around the Bassin de la Villette between 18 November and 14 December, 2015.

A total of 68,560 units of Ras Al Khaimah Cement (RAK Cement) shares have been repurchased by the company for AED 0.83 per share (US$0.23).

The cement company plans to buy a remaining 45.6 million shares as part of its buy-back programme.

The repurchase has bumped RAK Cement's total number of treasury shares to 10.29 million.

Pakistan-based company Lucky Cement recorded an annual 3.9% increase in net sales from PKR 43.08 billion (€370.78 million/US$413.42 million) to PKR 44.76 billion in the year ended 30 June, 2015.

This was followed by 7% in local sales from 4.13 million tonnes to 4.42 million tonnes on a year-on-year basis.

In the year under review, Lucky Cement registered a 9.6% rise in net profit from PKR 11.34 billion to PKR 12.43 billion, followed by 15.68% in consolidated net profit to PKR 13.76 billion.

In the

The Spanish construction company FCC has ruled out a potential sale of its 77.9% stake of cement company Cementos Portland Valderrivas, as suggested by Citi.

Citi recently announced that FCC was planning to sell its cement division within the next two years. This would be a necessary step in FCC's development as its corporate debt amounts to €1.36 billion, Citi pointed out.

The company also suggested that a quick sale at a reasonable price would be well received by the financial markets.

Citi exp

The UK Mineral Products Association (MPA) is launching a new publication, Dimension Stone – an Essential UK Industry.

MPA says that dimension stone producers are economically and culturally significant, producing 1 million tonnes of high value stone/year.

Dimension stone is used widely in new construction but is also of key importance to heritage assets and local distinctiveness.

CRH Concrete, the Danish subsidiary of the Irish group CRH, wants to continue expanding through acquisitions and is planning new acquisitions, according to Claus Bering, its managing director, who is also chairman of trade organisation the Danish Construction Association.

The company is interested in both the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian markets.

Bering says that CRH Concrete is also interested in related operations.

Bell Equipment UK has completed a major deal with Hanson for the supply of 15 machines, representing the first time that the company has used Bell articulated dump trucks and wheeled loaders.

The order has seen two ADTs and 13 wheeled loaders deployed at Hanson sites producing aggregates (crushed rock and sand and gravel), asphalt, cement, concrete and building products.

Never before has the European aggregates industry, recognised as the biggest non-energy extractive industry, been so visible to the highest level of EU decision-makers.

The UEPG promoted the compatibility of aggregates extraction with biodiversity during Green Week 2015, the biggest European environmental conference held in Brussels, Belgium.

This included an official satellite event (a site visit); two UEPG speakers with a UEPG stand at Green Week, and many UEPG members attending sessions and networ

For the first time at a French quarry, Trimble Loadrite has installed on-site and in wheeled loaders the firm’s Loadrite 360 payload weighing system with automated communication. Operational since the beginning of the year at GSM-Italcementi’s Marliens site in Burgundy, the innovative solution could become the norm for remotely and efficiently monitoring wheeled loaders’ payloads in all french quarries. Jean-Noël Onfield reports.

At the entrance to the Marliens quarry, near Dijon, eastern France, a tru

The Republic of Karelia in Russia is an origin of many mineral raw materials, such as iron ore, titanium, precious metals and diamonds. Sunsky Karier, a local producer and supplier of aggregates, is working on developing Suna field, one of Karelia’s main field deposits with natural resources.

The Republic of Karelia is a region known for its rich natural resources. At the moment, more than 50 types of mineral deposits and hundreds of mine fields and mineral occurrences are explored. Suna field is consid

Recycling Lahnau has been successfully deploying a Liebherr R 970 SME crawler excavator in a chalk pit in Dornap, near Wuppertal, Germany. More than 2,000 hours of on-site operation reflect the reliability and stability of the near-80tonne operating weight machine. In April 2015, Liebherr supplied the company with another two 80 and 90tonne category crawler excavator models, which will be used in the same quarry.

CDE has successfully installed its first AquaCycle system in France at S.A André Boureau’s new sand and gravel pit in Lanty-sur-Aube. The new mobile washing plant is said to be successfully producing commercial products while recycling 90% of the water used in the plant.

Family-owned quarry company located in the Haute-Marne region in north-east France, S.A. André Boureau began operating in 1965. Its quarries produce more than 300,000tonnes of sand, gravel and aggregates every year for use in a wide ran

Peter-Valentin Sauter, a Caterpillar quarry specialist, discusses the best ways of ensuring the safest haul roads in quarries.

Good quarry haul road design equals safer trucks travelling within their target payload in safe conditions at the rated speed in all day and night weather

Crowned straight sections, super-elevated curves, and safety berms with drainage ditches on both sides, constructed with well graded sub-base material are the hallmarks of a quality quarry haul road. Proper lighting in the l