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The UK’s biggest precast concrete event has taken place at Leicester Tigers Stadium in Leicester, country Leicestershire, England. Sponsored by Tekla, PRECAST2015 on Thursday 21 May has been hailed a great success with over 60 exhibitors showcasing the industry’s latest products to more than 400 delegates in attendance.

The exhibition was packed with seminars, live demonstrations, and networking sessions taking place throughout the day. Delegates were able to attend guest speaker-led briefings on key to

British Aggregates Association director Robert Durward has written to Sajid Javid MP, the new Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, urging him to take a personal interest in the long-standing issue of the UK Aggregates Levy.

Having replaced Vince Cable as business secretary following the 2015 General Election, Javid has vowed to sweep away at least €14.03 billion (£10 billion) of red tape for companies during this parliament.

In his letter, Mr Durward states that since its introduction

Hope Construction Materials, Britain’s leading independent supplier of construction materials, has announced a major investment in rail transportation from its flagship Derbyshire cement operation.

Hope, who supply cement to customers across the UK, is investing over €1.4 million (£1 million) in the manufacture and long-term lease of 48 tailor-made rail wagons for the distribution of cement from its Hope Works, in Hope Valley.

The wagons are being manufactured by German company Feldbinder, and are du

CarbonCure Technologies, a Canadian green technology company serving the concrete sector, has closed a $3 million Series C investment round.

Pangaea Ventures, a world leader in advanced materials venture capital, is said to have led the oversubscribed round. The investment will be used to accelerate sales in the concrete masonry sector, and expand CarbonCure’s CO2 utilisation technology platform into the ready-mixed concrete sector.

Joining Pangaea are investors from the previous investment rounds

Natural stone production specialist Cupa Stone its sixth Spanish distribution centre in Spain. Costing €1 million, the 1,500m² centre in Padron will stock more than 200 of the 500 products the firm manages. It will serve as a showroom for customers and will also have work spaces for its commercial division and management for its own warehouse.

Lafarge CEO Bruno Lafont has been awarded a €2.5m bonus for his efforts to secure the merger deal between the French cement giant and Swiss counterpart Holcim, the London-based Financial Times reports.

The FT quotes Lafarge saying that the bonus was for the "exceptional performance" of Lafont in "extraordinary circumstances". The FT says the bonus represents a significant addition on top of his normal salary and perks, which in 2014 were a reported €1.8 million.

Details of Lafont’s reported bonus com

Maptek’s new I-Site Drive is said to provide mines, quarries and industrial operations with a fast and accurate system for frequent stockpile volume reporting. It continuously acquires data with recommended I-Site laser scanner mounted on a moving vehicle, and surveyors can quickly measure stockpiles for reporting and comparing daily or weekly volumes, reducing the time for data collection and minimising interruption to site activities.

Terex Finlay has appointed Rik Kiddle as the internationally renowned crushing and screening firm’s global business development and sales director. In his new role for the Northern Ireland headquartered company, Kiddle will be responsible for strategically driving business growth, increasing market share as well as identifying and developing new market opportunities on a global basis. He will lead the current sales, marketing and distribution development teams, be a key driver in new product development ini

Doosan Construction Equipment has opened a new parts distribution centre (PDC) for Bobcat and Doosan Portable Power products in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The centre is a collaboration with Agility, a leading global logistics provider, which is hosting and managing the new facility at the Jebel Ali Free Zone.

A new conveyor belt cleaner from Martin Engineering is engineered to contain a smaller total volume of urethane while maximising the usable area. The company says it is produced in a streamlined process that allows the manufacturer to reduce the purchase price and overall cost of ownership.

Flowrox’s new Expulse product is designed to assist during pump and dampener maintenance. The company, among the global leaders in heavy-duty industrial valve manufacturing and services, says the Expulse reduces noise and vibration associated with traditional methods, which it claims can lead to pipe damage that can cause breakage and a loss of revenue.

Introducing three new demolition and sorting grapples, the G310 GC, G313 GC and G315 GC, is Caterpillar Work Tools. The models are additions to the current G300, and designed for hydraulic excavators with operating weights ranging from 10-19tonnes, being purpose-built specifically to sort out debris at source, load or unload containers or strip a building before final demolition.

Australian fine particle engineering company 88Chemco has launched its dust suppressant in southern Africa, specifically designed for quarry haul roads. Hydrogel is sprayed directly onto haul road surfaces, where the product enhances water’s ability to wet and bind fine particles by up to eight times more than plain water. “Our best result was a client south of Johannesburg, South Africa, who reported that watering of haul roads was reduced to once every 17 hours from the normal two to three-hour intervals,

The South African quarry industry’s main adversary to its development is illegal mining, but commercial quarry operators deem the establishment of borrow pits as equally damaging, writes Munesu Shoko. Around 103 million tonnes/year of aggregate are produced in South Africa, based on 2012/2013 returns and industry estimates. The country’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) says this is a significant increase on the 81 million tonnes/year reported between 2010 and 2011.

Myanmar quarrying company Long Life Aggregate Mining has recently taken delivery of its first Tiger DG700 Surface Top-hammer Drill Rig. The DG700 was supplied by Sandvik Construction’s authorised distributor in Myanmar, MSPM, and has been put to work boosting productivity as demand for high quality aggregates increases.
A longstanding Sandvik Construction customer, Long Life Aggregate Mining currently operates a range of Sandvik crushers and screening equipment which has been used to great effect producing

Bin Lahej Crushers is using a fleet of Volvo construction equipment to produce an abundance of high quality aggregate at its site in Fujairah, UAE Located in the northeast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Fujairah is an emirate almost entirely surrounded by mountains. This rugged landscape is the product of an estimated 800 million years of geological activity and today provides a vast supply of quality limestone.

Spanish building materials firm Uralita’s losses rose by 18.1% to €18.9 million in Q1 2015, compared to the same period of 2014, due to its financing costs rising to €14.6 million. At the same time, the company’s ebitda decreased by 1.9% to €9.1 million and sales totalled €130.3 million after rising by 1.8%. Sales abroad accounted for 76% of all sales, while sales in Spain decreased by 13%. Sales of Uralita’s Interiors division rose by 2% to €117.2 million, and revenues of its pipes division rose by 1% to €

A key machine within Guo Zhongjin’s quarry contracting success story, the LiuGong ZL50CN wheeled loader comes with a 162kW Cummins engine and has an operating weight of 16.7tonnes, and a 3m³ bucket as standard.
LiuGong says the model is easy to maintain, with easy engine access, convenient placement of key parts and fluid refill parts. The Chinese firm says the ZL50CN is also built for efficiency, offering powershift for smooth gear changes and a 35° angle of articulation.

PPC, South Africa's largest cement manufacturer, recorded 9.2% sales growth to US$377.91 million (ZAR 4.5 billion) in the six months to March 2015. But it wasn’t all good news for the company, as its net income dropped from $7.73 million (ZAR 494 million) to $4.29 million (ZAR 274 million), followed by another decline in earnings per share before one-time items from ZAR 0.96 to ZAR 0.60 on a year-on-year basis.

Meanwhile, PPC is planning to generate an additional profit of $6.26 million (ZAR 400 millio

Lafarge, the French cement giant, has received seven expressions of interests for the acquisition of two of its assets in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, India ahead of its merger with Switzerland-based Holcim. Lafarge has been directed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to sell its cement plant in Sonadih and a grinding unit in Jojobera to relatively small companies with an installed capacity of at least 5% of their total capacity.

The bids for Lafarge’s Indian assets were made by six foreign and