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Sir David Chipperfield is the winner of the prestigious British Precast Creativity in Concrete 2013 Award.

Having established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985, Sir David and the company have been responsible for a number of diverse and innovative creations around the world using concrete. For example, projects such as The Ciutat de la Justícia

(City of Justice) in Barcelona, Spain; the rebuilt New Museum in Berlin, Germany, and more recently the San Michele Cemetery in Venice, Italy, all demonstr

Italian cement and construction materials group Cementir posted €116 million EBITDA in the first nine months of 2013, up by 22.3% year-on-year.

Pre-tax profits reached €39.7 million, up by 137.9%, while operating profits were up by 65.6% to €50.7 million and revenues rose by 1.4% to €730.9 million.

The performance was particularly positive in the Scandinavian countries, Egypt and the Far East, enabling the company to confirm its 2013 targets. These will entail revenues of over €1 billion, EBITDA of ov

The Mineral Products Association’s (MPA) 2nd assessment of the cumulative impact of environmental and planning related taxation and regulation has highlighted the ever-increasing scale and cost of this burden on the mineral products industry. Key findings from the assessment include: • Total sector costs of identified measures are £400 million/year (€478 million) now, likely to rise to £665 million/year from 2020.
• Climate change and energy measures are currently equivalent to 17

China's Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group (AFECC) and Moscow-based Mitline will build a cement plant in the Sverdlovsk region (Urals) of Russia. Its output capacity will total 1.2 million tonnes/year, and the investment will amount to approximately
€200 million with AFECC providing 85%, and Mitline 15%.

The new plant will use dry production method, and experts think that there will be demand for the plant's products as the region is close to cement deficit.

The British Ready-Mixed Concrete Association (BRMCA) Award for Excellence in Customer Service recognises and celebrates ready-mixed companies who provide a high-quality efficient and professional service.

The award was presented at this year’s Concrete Society Awards Dinner where Dr Chris Clear, BRMCA technical director, said: “The top winner and commended entries demonstrate the range of applications and provide a showcase for the technical expertise of the members and their commitment to delivering sol

The European cement industry association Cembureau has initiated a project, The Role of Cement in the 2050 Low Carbon Economy, in which Buzzi Unicem is participating through the Italian cement industry association, AITEC.

The goal of the project is to find solutions for reducing CO2 emissions generated by the cement production process using current and future technologies, concluding theoretically in 2050.

Investors have been invited by the Polish State Treasury to take part in negotiations regarding the purchase of an 85% stake in the aggregate producer Kopalnie Surowcow Skalnych (KSS) in Zlotoryja.

In 2012, KSS had a PLN 5.75 million (€1.36 million) net loss and saw its revenue shrink from PLN 19.41 million (€4.6 million) in 2011 to PLN 9.86 million (€2.3 million). Currently, the company is undergoing restructuring. Companies interested in the privatisation of KSS must make their offers by 21 November, 2

Metso has completed the acquisition of the Spanish grinding media supplier Santa Ana de Bolueta (Sabo), a move that will complement Metso's current comminution wear parts offering for mining customers.The value of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

“Our aim is to continuously strengthen our services offering and footprint. Sabo is a reputable and well-known grinding media provider with an excellent know-how, and the acquisition fits perfectly into our strategy: through this acquisition we will become

It has been reported that the Swiss company Emilio Stecher is the first foreign investor in the Serbian town of Prijepolje where it invested €3million in its stone products plant.

Company director Mesa Podbicanin, said that the company has over 300 types of stone. He said that the factory exports 85% of products to Switzerland while the remainder is exported to Montenegro.

Worldwide sales of cement are forecast to expand more than 5%/year through 2017 to over 4.7 billion tonnes, a slight deceleration from the 2007-2012 pace.

Following severe declines from 2008 to 2011 and stagnating demand in 2012, cement consumption is expected to rebound sharply in North America and Western Europe. Eastern Europe will perform much better as well. While growth in China is expected to decelerate noticeably between 2012 and 2017 after more than a decade of rapid gains, demand for cement in

CRH, the building supplies group, says it will undertake a review of its businesses to identify further disposals following a 2% increase in sales in the third-quarter.

“With changing regional growth dynamics in the global economy, management is undertaking a detailed assessment of our portfolio to focus on the businesses which offer the most attractive future returns,” says CRH said in a trading update.

The Mineral Products Association’s (MPA’) prestigious Health and Safety Conference and Awards 2013 brought together 64 organisations, including members, contractors and other key stakeholders from all over the UK to recognise, reward and share best practice, progress and results in health and safety.

Overall, the Awards attracted 145 entries from 35 different organisations, with almost half of submissions provided by companies with less than 1,000 direct employees. A full-house of about 250 delegates at

Marble comes in all shapes, sizes and colours, and for centuries has been prized for its versatility, writes Patrick Smith. Some of the world’s best known buildings are made of it, including The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy; the Taj Mahal, India, and the Parthenon in Greece. Many of the oldest major Roman buildings are made of marble (the Colosseum’s facade was made of it). Indeed more ancient monuments were constructed of marble than any other stone. More recent examples of marble’s use can be found at s

Kieswerk Kohler has addressed the issues caused by excess fines in the material at its quarry in Engen/Welschingen, Germany.
The solution offered by CDE GmbH, the installation of the M2500 mobile washing plant, has also enabled the production of an additional sand product which the company is now offering to customers.
The raw material being processed by Kieswerk Kohler at the site contains a large proportion of material smaller than 250 microns. With the crushing and screening processes previously employ

The first Hitachi ZW220-5 wheeled loader in Europe has been delivered to Norwegian company Farbu & Gausen, which specialises in road and railway construction projects, and electricity contracts on a national basis. The new ZW-5 machine has already been dispatched to a limestone quarry that its owner rents from Hall Farm, close to its base at Kjerknesvågen, located along the Trondheimsfjord on the Inderøy peninsula. Farbu & Gausen has had a licence from the local government to extract 400,000m³ of materials

FLSmidth, in a consortium with Six Construct, has received an order from Qatar Primary Materials worth. approximately €140 million (DKK 1 billion), which covers the supply of conveying and stacking systems for the Gabbro terminal expansion located in Mesaieed Industrial City, approximately 35km south of Doha, the capital of Qatar.

The scope of supply includes a large high capacity conveying system; a complete integrated instrumentation and control system; complete stockyard equipment including six stack

Topcon Positioning Group has acquired DynaRoad, a construction software company in Helsinki, Finland. Topcon also announced the establishment of the Topcon Helsinki Technology Centre in conjunction with the acquisition.

In 2011, Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) acquired a significant share of DynaRoad, a company that develops project management software specifically designed for large-scale construction projects such as highways, tunnels, railways, area developments and harbour developments.

Ray O’Con

Machine choice can be critical to a quarry’s productivity and matching a loader or excavator with a hauling solution to maximise efficiency has never been so important, writes Dan Gilkes

However, all of that good work can to some extent be undone if the loader is fitted with the wrong type or size of bucket.

In some respects buckets are like tyres. For some customers they are just a black hoop of rubber that keeps the machine off the ground, when in reality the modern earthmover tyre is a complex mix

Restoration work currently underway in the UK is set to restore the world’s oldest surviving steam shovel to full working order

Steam shovels, or navvys, once helped mechanise quarries throughout Europe but many were scrapped as technology improved and diesel power started to be adopted. Nonetheless, a few do still remain and work underway in the UK will ensure that what is believed to be the world’s oldest machine of this type not only survives but will also be fully operational. Tucked away in a former

A new strategic research and development initiative in dewatering was launched at bauma 2013, writes Jon Masters. The company behind the announcement was Weir Minerals, stating a commitment to working with customers and academic researchers to “tackle the biggest challenge in the aggregates industry: raising output while reducing costs.” The company says its Materials Matters R&D project will focus on four main criteria of reliability, longevity of wearing parts, ease of maintenance and fuel consumption in