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In the first half of 2015, turnover for the Moroccan cement group Ciments du Maroc (Cimar) was up 7.6%, compared with the same period in 2014, to MAD 1.93 billion (€178.90 million/US$196.39 million), despite a 1.3% decline in national consumption.

The performance is being attributed to good sales in the Doukkala-Abda region, which is currently carrying out the construction of the Safi-El Jadida motorway and Safi port.

Consolidated net profit was up 10% to MAD 501 million.

Gross operating income was

Tunisian cement group Ciment de la Méditerranée (CMG) has received authorisation from the Ministry of Industry to develop a clinker production site with a production capacity of 1 million tonnes/year (1.2 million tonnes of grey cement).

The project will require an investment of US$220 million (€200.4 million), with the production site to be located in El Guettar in the governorate of Gafsa.

The project is set to create 300 jobs directly, as well as 1,000 indirect jobs.

CMG counts Ahmed Bouchamaoui

The Investment Board of Nepal (IBN) has approved a proposal by Shivam Cement and Hongshi Holding Group of China to invest NPR 36 billion (€319.28 million/US$350.50 million) to build a cement plant with capacity of 6,000tonnes/day.

It is expected that over 2,000 people will be hired during the cement plant's construction.

Reliance Infrastructure Company of India and Dangote Group of Nigeria have also received IBN's approvals to invest in the country.

The finance director of Semen Indonesia (SI), is reported as saying that the state cement company is planning to allocate some US$4.30 billion (€3.88 billion) for its capital expenditures in the next five years.

The allocations are $687.7 million for 2015; $1.28 billion (2016); $1.06 billion (2017); $577.89 million (2018), and US$656 million (2019).

The funding to boost capacity will depend on prevailing market conditions, and the company plans to generate the funding via a combination of bank loans a

Finnish construction and infrastructure company Lemminkäinen's net sales fell to €492.1 million in the second quarter of 2015 from €510.5 million in the second quarter of 2014.

Operating profit was €15.6 million, up from €14.8 million. This represented 3.2% of net sales, compared to 2.9% in the corresponding period in 2014.

In January-June 2015, net sales fell to €781.8 million from €789.8 million in the corresponding period in 2014. Operating loss was €2.4 million, compared to a loss of €2.5 million,

Lafarge Africa has reported a pre-tax profit of NGN 29.72 billion (€136.03 million/US$149.33 million) in the first half of 2015, up 13% from the corresponding period of 2014.

Sales were up 12.0% to NGN 116.7 billion, while finance and investment income more than doubled to NGN 3.5 billion.

Raumix Aggregates (Raumix) of South Africa has been blocked by the Competition Commission from taking over OMV Group, a producer of aggregates used by road contractors as road stone to manufacture asphalt and concrete.

The Commission said that the transaction could substantially reduce competition in the production of aggregates used to surface roads in the Kimberley area.

Raumix is a subsidiary of Raubex that produces value-added bitumen products as well as resurface, restore and maintain roads.

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Metso has received awards in Chile's ranking of suppliers to the mining industry.

It gained first place in the industry's Best Performance Supplier of the Minerals Processing Segment and third place in the Best Overall Performance Supplier of Mining.

Phibrand, a company specialising in industry marketing, conducted the study for the fourth time in collaboration with Chile's Ministry of Mining; Industrial Suppliers Association of Mining (Aprimin); Chile's National Mining Society (SONAMI); Association o

In its largest order with Hitachi Construction Machinery (UK) (HCMUK) to date, Keyway has purchased 96 new machines, bringing the total of Hitachi models in its fleet to more than 400 units.

The new deliveries between April and August 2015 range from two to 35tonne excavators, including several short-tail swing models, and the company’s first wheeled excavator, the ZX140W-5.

RDS Technology says that it has received accreditation for its LOADMASTER a100,a ‘legal for trade’ weigher, enabling products to be sold from the printed ticket.

The company says that typically fitted to a wheeled loading shovel, the unit “effectively transforms the loader into a mobile weighbridge which conforms to class Y(b) levels of accuracy (and OIML only in the UK).

The company’s quality system for production, testing and final product inspection was subject to scrutiny by the National Measureme

Heidelberg Cement says that during the second quarter of 2015 s sales volumes increased in all business lines and group revenue wasup by 10% to €3.6 billion (previous year: €3.3 billion; like-for-like +0.4%).

The company’s Q2 results also show that operating income before depreciation (OIBD) improved by 15% to €752 million (previous year: €655 million; like-for-like* +6%); the OIBD margin improved to 20.7%, and a reduction in net debt compared with the previous year by €1.6 billion to €6.3 billion,

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HeidelbergCement, which is among the global leaders in aggregates and a prominent player in the fields of cement, concrete, and other downstream activities, is to acquire Italcementi, the Italian building materials company.

Germany’s largest cement maker will buy a 45% stake in the Bergamo-based building materials company for €1.7 billion in cash and shares, a move that will see it later acquire the remainder of the company.

The deal follows the recent €41 billion merger of Lafarge and Holicm (Lafarge

LafargeHolcim has unveiled its roadmap for the second half of 2015 as it has released the 2015 half-year results for Lafarge and Holcim (see below).
“We continue to operate in a demanding global market environment and this has affected our first-half performance,” says Eric Olsen, CEO of LafargeHolcim.
“However, as a new company we have hit the ground running.
“A team of 200 senior leaders of LafargeHolcim met as early as last week to align on priorities, targets and initiatives to drive the integration

The Italian marble industry has resumed growth on international markets.

Following the consolidation of results in 2014, the first quarter of 2015 is hallmarked by a resumption in exports.

This upturn is driven by the 18.6% leap in international sales for stone quarrying and processing technologies, improving turnover up to €260 million.

Caterpillar said global sales of machinery by its dealers fell 14% for the three-month period ended in June.
The retail-sales update, which showed an even steeper drop from the 12% decline in its first-quarter report, came a day ahead of Caterpillar’s second-quarter earnings report.
Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction and mining machinery, has, like the rest of the industry, faced a persistent slump in mining equipment, sluggishness in construction machinery in much of the world and a m

Spanish construction materials company, Corporacion Empresarial de Materiales de Construccion (COEMAC), has appointed Gonzalo Serratosa as its new vice-chairman.

Jose Antonio Carracosa has been appointed proprietary director and Javier Gonzalez Ochoa has been ratified as executive chairman.

COEMAC was previously named Uralita.

Cemex Latam Holdings (CLH) posted a 42% reduction in its profit in the second quarter of 2015, down to US$38.60 million (€35.64 million), compared with its profit in the same year-earlier period.

The company gathers cement production activities of Cemex in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Brazil.

It closed the first six months of 2015 with a profit of US$82 million, 32% down year-on-year.

Italian concrete manufacturer Barbetti, part of the Cementerie Aldo Barbetti (CAB) cement group, posted a loss of about €7.8 million in 2014 from a €93.6 million loss posted in the previous year.

Revenues fell to €60.2 million from €63.4 million, while EBITDA dropped to €3.8 million from €7.5 million.

Sales revenues also fell by about €9.5 million to about €48.4 million, while net assets dropped to €17.6 million from €25.5 million.

Following the sale of its Turkish subsidiary, Cimko Cimento, the c

The UK’s Mineral Products Association (MPA) has made renewed representations to government and in particular Roads Minister, Andrew Jones, to introduce regulation for volumetric concrete mixers.

It says that currently, at least 10% of concrete deliveries are made by volumetric concrete mixers which are significantly under-regulated.

Breedon Aggregates, the UK’s largest independent aggregates business, has announced its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June, 2015.
They show a 28% increase in revenue from £125.2 million the previous comparable period to £160.5 million; underlying EBITDA at £27.3 million (£17.8 million in 2014, + 54%), and a pre-tax profit rise of 92% from £9.1million to £17.5 million.
The company says that underlying results are stated before acquisition related expenses, redundancy and reorganisat