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Lafarge plans to expand its India operations across the country despite an anticipated slowdown, the French major's chairman and CEO Bruno Lafont said. He cited a new study that says India will become the world's third-largest construction market by 2025, to support his buoyancy. The study by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics expects India to add 11.5 million homes a year to become a US$1 trillion, or about 59 lakh crore, a year market, even though it has cut India's short-term growth pr

After more than three years of development, BedRock Software (BedRock) has announced the latest version of its popular AggFlow program. The new program version represents a completely new generation of simulation software to manage and optimise a quarry, mine or aggregate plant operation, and is called AggFlow Design and Manage (AggFlowDM). AggFlowDM, which is now available, is a hybrid program that allows users to work online or off-line and to share projects with other users at will. The sharing capabili

It has been reported that Holcim Croatia building materials company has appointed Alan Sisinacki as its new president, effective from the beginning of July 2013. He has replaced Mario Grassle. Sisinacki has been working for Holcim since 2006.

CRH has made 17 acquisition and investment initiatives during the first half of 2013. These transactions, together with the acquisition of Cementos Lemona in Spain (acquired as part of the Uniland asset swap announced in February) and net deferred consideration payments, bring development spend for the first half of 2013 to approximately €470 million. Proceeds to date from divestments and disposals, including the Uniland swap, amount to approximately €185 million. “The group has continued in 2013 to develop

In Liberia, HeidelbergCement has successfully commissioned a new cement mill at its cement grinding plant in the capital city of Monrovia. The investment in the new mill, which has an annual capacity of 0.5 million tonnes, amounted to US$14 million (€10.7 million). The Liberian subsidiary Cemenco is the only cement producer in Liberia and has a strong market position. The company is part of HeidelbergCement’s network of cement grinding facilities on the West African coast supporting the Group’s regional str

Cemex in collaboration with BirdLife International has developed a new inspiring publication that captures the company’s approach tobiodiversity conservation. The launch of this publication signals significant progress in the company’s ten-year global conservation partnership with Birdlife International, the world’s largest civil society partnership for nature. Supported by CEMEX’s team in Switzerland, Cemex and BirdLife have worked together since 2007 to increase the environmental sustainability of Cemex’s

The Hitachi Construction Machinery Europe (HCME) wholly-owned subsidiary and UK dealer, HM Plant, is celebrating a new partnership with Coleg Menai (Menai College) in Wales. The agreement will see the delivery of three of the latest Hitachi Zaxis excavators to the new Heavy Plant Training Centre at the college’s Llangefni campus. The ZX48U-5 mini, and ZX135US-5 and ZX225USRLC-5 medium excavators will be used to train local people in the skills needed to work on construction sites on Anglesey (and beyond) at

Earthline is building-up flexible configurations to meet a variety of processing requirements, with machinery supplied by Finlay Plant SW at its Shipton Quarry site, near Oxford, England. Latest additions to the Terex Finlay fleet include a J1175 Jaw Crusher, as well as 863 and 883 heavy duty screens. They join existing Terex Finlay machines including two 683 inclined screens, another J1175 Jaw Crusher and a C1540 Cone Crusher, which all work in unison to process limestone quarried at the Oxfordshire-based

The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has welcome the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s commitment to increase public investment to over £50 billion (€58.4 billion) per year from 2015/16 and welcomes the announcements on infrastructure, but remains concerned about the need for short term investment prior to the election. Nigel Jackson, chief executive MPA, said: “We have heard the words, we now need a greater sense of urgency and accelerated delivery to create confidence for the private sector to invest to

Xavier Dedullen has been appointed head of the newly-created Holcim legal and compliance function, as well as group general counsel. as corporate functional manager he becomes a member of holcim senior management, reportings directly to the group CEO with a functional dotted line to the board of directors. As chief legal and compliance officer and group general counsel, he assumes responsibility for all legal and compliance matters.

It is reported that Cemex has halted production at its mortar plant in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain due to the state of the economy and construction market in Spain. The company has reduced its production capacity in Spain by 60%. A total of €47 million was invested into the plant, which was constructed in 2006. It has the capacity to produce 1 million tonnes of cement and 200,000tonnes of dry mortar per year.

HeidelbergCement has outlined plans for expansion of the company’s Biodiversity Action Plan as a key element of the group’s business model and sustainability strategy. At an event in connection with the recent BirdLife World Congress, the company, together with BirdLife International, has developed a Biodiversity Conservation Programme for Europe, which complements the existing internal policies and guidelines.

IronPlanet has appointed Jethran Roeten as it new representative in the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg) region. Felipe Fernández-Urrutia Massó, Europe major accounts director at IronPlanet said: “Jethran has over 18 years’ experience working in the international used equipment industry, especially throughout Benelux, making him a perfect fit to grow IronPlanet’s business in this region. We are thrilled to have him on board, and I am sure his extensive skillset will be a great asset to IronP

In France, cellular concrete producer Cellumat received the Élu produit du BTP par les professionnels label for its Thermoruptor solution during a ceremony organised by Sageret. Thermoruptor is designed to eliminate thermal bridges and compries cellular concrete panels and blocks. The label indicates that Cellumat's Thermoruptor solution was chosen by professionals as being one of the best. The company can use the label on its sales and marketing tools relating to the product.

French cement specialist Kercim is investing €44 million in an ultra-modern clinker grinder in Montoir-de-Bretagne. The company is aiming to obtain a 10% market share and is targeting the 300km zone around Saint-Nazaire, with a production capacity of 600,000tonnes. The group's concept is based on the external supply of raw materials, which allows it to avoid dependence on quarries. President of Kercim, Jean-Marc Domange, notes that the group has obtained CE certification for two of its cement products (acco

The Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) has released a report estimating the development of the mining industry in Finland from 2010 to 2020 and 2030. According to researcher Mari Tuusjärvi, the output of metal ores is expected to increase by 14% per year from 2010 to 2020. Moreover, the output of all extractive operations will double to €4 billion by 2020 and triple to €6 billion by 2030. In terms of rock materials, the growth will be more even.

In order to highlight its virtuous practices at its gypsum quarries, plasterboard producer Placoplatre (Saint-Gobain) organised visits to its extraction sites in Le Pin-Villeparisis and Cormeilles-en-Parisis in Ile-de-France. According to Placoplatre, the Paris basin holds three-quarters of French gypsum deposits, although more than 80% of these deposits are not available. The quarry in Le Pin-Villeparisis has been operated since 1822 and supplies 600,000tonnes of gypsum each year to Placoplatre's Vaujours

Terex Washing Systems (TWS) has expanded its team by appointing two new sales managers, Amol Sinha in India, and James Bulebush in the USA. Responding to business growth and increased customer demand in these two countries, TWS hired these team members as dedicated contacts to provide customers and distributors with washing expertise, project management, technical and service support locally in India and USA, says the company. Amol Sinha is based at the Terex facility in Hosur, India, and James Bulebush is

The board of CRH has co-opted to the board, with effect from 1 July 2013 Donald A. McGovern, Jr. as a non-executive director. McGovern, 62, a United States citizen, is currently vice chairman, global assurance at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a position he has held since July 2008. He will retire from PwC on 30 June 2013, following a 39-year career with the company, during which time he directed its services for a number of large public company clients. He has held various leadership roles in PwC and was, f

Lafarge has sold its subsidiary North American Gypsum's assets at an enterprise value of US$700 million (€533 million) to an affiliate of Lone Star Funds. Lafarge North America’s Gypsum division manufactures gypsum wallboards and joint compounds throughout a network of plants in the United States and Canada. In 2012, these operations generated sales of $310 million.