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Blackstone, Cinven and a Canadian pension fund are said by the UK’s Financial Times (FT) newspaper to be exploring a joint bid for €5 billion worth of assets earmarked for sale by cement makers Lafarge and Holcim.

The move by the two private equity groups and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, said by the FT to have been disclosed by two people familiar with the talks, is the latest claimed interest from buyout groups in the facilities to be sold by the world’s two largest cement groups to help wi

Semen Indonesia will next year to set up a new €219.6 million cement plant in Vietnam, according to the Jakarta Post. The new plant will serve the Vietnamese domestic market and export to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Singapore. Construction of the new plant is said by the newspaper to be earmarked to begin in early 2015. It will produce 1.5 million tonnes/cement annually.

In a further development at Semen Indonesia, a state-run cement maker, the firm has also reportedly entered into an offtake deal with T

The first in a series of NAM (Nature After Minerals)/RESTORE 2014 best-practice demonstration events for quarry restoration recently took place in North Yorkshire, England.

The event focused on the merits of letting natural regeneration encourage nature within a site’s restoration plan. It attracted 30 stakeholders from across the minerals industry, local planning authorities, statutory agencies, conservation NGOs and environmental consultancy sectors. They heard how and where natural regeneration has pl

Urbanisation is driving a rise in construction projects and the need for more Portland cement, according to a new Transparency Market Research (TMR) report.

The new report titled ‘Global Portland Cement Market: Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2013-2019’ also highlights how growth in nuclear families, the increasing need for investment in infrastructure and rising disposable income are set to increase demand for Portland cement within the forecast period. TMR also notes an exponential r

Dangote Cement is reportedly set to open its new Cameroon plant in August 2014. It was initially expected to enter service in January 2014, and then July 2014, but Baba Abdullahi, managing director of Dangote Cement Cameroun (DCC), told StarAfrica that delays have been linked to problems in making the access route to the plant viable and in securing the electricity supply. From 2016 onwards, Dangote Cement is looking to produce 1.5 million tonnes of cement in Cameroon. The new plant, which required an inves

Lafarge, the French concrete and cement materials giant, and Germany-based construction chemicals producer BASF have agreed to set up a joint venture in Iraq. Under the agreement, the two firms will establish a new plant that will be responsible for the production of construction materials. Located in Kurdistan, the autonomous Iraqi region, the new plant will mainly produce cement additives and concrete admixtures.

Long term growth in asphalt demand will be primarily driven by the continuously expanding highways across the world that are needed to accommodate the massively growing automobile population, a new report states.

‘Asphalt: A Global Strategic Business Report’ by Global Industry Analysts (GIA) says key innovations that are poised to benefit the market through to 2020 include noise-reducing hot-mix asphalt for lowering traffic noise, and the introduction of green technologies for eco-friendly production of

Leading central England plant hire firm JoinPoint has bought 20 E-series ADTs from Bell Equipment to refresh and expand its fleet.

Now in its 25th year, JoinPoint runs a large plant hire operation from its headquarters in the centre of Leicester. The company has been using Bell as its sole supplier of ADTs since 2002, when owner Paul Finnegan and managing director David Brown ordered four machines. Since then, JoinPoint has regularly added further models and now has more than twenty Bell ADTs in its fl

Highly efficient quarry and mining equipment operators can now gain the industry’s first ever gold standard accreditation.

Launched last week at Hillhead 2014 and offered through a joint partnership between MPQC’s Awarding Body, MP Awards and Finning, the UK and Ireland’s Caterpillar dealer, the scheme aims to professionalise the industry, recognising the best operators in the country and encouraging businesses to invest in the training and support of a key part of the industry’s workforce. To achieve t

Ian Bagshawe of Cemex Dove Holes Quarry, County Derbyshire, England, has been awarded one of the first ever industry-wide gold standard accreditation for highly efficient quarry and mining equipment operators.

The new standard has been launched through a partnership between MP Awards and Finning and aims to recognise the best operators in the country.

He is one of four operators to be presented with the award at the recent Hillhead exhibition where the new standard was launched.

The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has welcomed the official launch of the Professional Recognition In Mineral Extraction (PRIME) project.

The MPA-sponsored initiative, launched at the recent Hillhead 2014 show near Buxton, England, has been partly funded by a grant from UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills), and has received universal support from the mineral products industry. It is being delivered by the Institute of Quarrying and MPQC, supported by a steering group representing producer

Holcim has released its 2013 Corporate Sustainability Report detailing the group’s ongoing activities in sustainable development and disclosing data on a number of key sustainability performance indicators. A panel of independent external experts has contributed to the report by reviewing and confirming the sustainability topics covered. These experts have furthermore made recommendations to Holcim which are included in the report.

CEO Bernard Fontana said: “Reflecting our vision to provide foundations

Sublime Nature, a new book launched by CEMEX UK, is the first in the new Nature Series from global building materials supplier, CEMEX.

This visually inspiring book with stunning photographs taken from the natural world follows the high standard of the celebrated 20-volume CEMEX Conservation book series.

Sublime Nature, developed in partnership with National Geographic and Christina Mittermaier, dedicated conservationist and photographer, includes spectacular photographs taken by award-winning photojo

HeidelbergCement has started its Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) in order to continuously optimise the working processes in cement production. The new programme, which will be introduced at 65 cement plants worldwide, takes a systematic approach in order to generate ideas among the employees, prioritise, and implement them. The process enhancements shall lead to sustainable result improvements of at least €120 million by the end of 2017.

“With our Continuous Improvement Program we are changing the

The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has welcomed government plans to allocate £168 million to councils across England to help repair potholes or to ensure that they do not appear in the first place.

Nigel Jackson, chief executive MPA, said: “This significant road investment has been long awaited and is much needed. Money spent on repairing damage never goes as far as money invested in planned, preventative maintenance. It costs at least 20 times more per square metre to fill a pothole than it does to

According to the Federal State Statistics Service, Portland cement output rose by 23% to 27.3 million tonnes in Russia in 2013, compared with 2012. Output almost doubled in comparison with 2009.

In 2013, cement production in Italy fell by 12% year-on-year to 23.1 million tonnes. Cement sales fell by 15.1% to 21.7 million tonnes. In 2014 a drop of 8% is expected, according to Aitec, the Italian cement association.

Over the four years from 2014 to 2017, the higher demand for cement in the Philippines will be met as the expansion of cement plant capacity is projected to increase steadily.

This was according to a survey by University of Santo Tomas' Professor Antoinette Rosete, using published sources.

As projected by Professor Rosete, domestic cement demand is expected to continue growing over the four years to come, to 27 million tonnes in 2017.

The study showed that the growth in cement plant capacity will l

Ekokon group has opened a nano-cement plant in the UAE.

The plant will make silicate cement with mineral additives. The group has started building similar plants in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Indonesia. It plans to open over ten enterprises.

Swiss cement and construction materials producer Holcim is reported to be requesting over €700,000 state aid for its investment in a new centre for sales support, HR, back office and accounting services for its operations in four European countries.

The Holcim Business Services centre is planned to be opened in Kosice, eastern Slovakia, and the state aid is requested for creation of new jobs.

The company plans to employ 61 people by the end of 2015. The new centre will provide services for Slovakia, H