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Case has emphasised its focus on customers with the opening of a new demonstration centre near Paris, France. The new facility at Monthyon was officially opened at an event in October 2009, which was attended by 80 guests.
The new centre is designed to give customers an opportunity to test equipment in similar conditions to their own sites, including mass excavation, material handling and light equipment applications. But the €3million centre is also designed to give customers an insight into the brand beh

ContiTech has strengthened its industrial business in specialised conveyor belts by buying Specialised Belting Supplies of Thetford, County Norfolk, eastern England. The company, which has with 50 employees, has been in the market since 1984 and produces primarily steep-angle conveyor belts for the transport of bulk materials including ore, coal or gravel. “The purchase of this profitable and established company is strategically important and opens additional opportunities for us in the growing worldwide ma

Topcon has unveiled the IP-S2 system which is capable of offering quarry customers a fast, easy solution for blast face surveying and volumetric calculations.

The car or truck mounted system offers a mobile 3D precision mapping and survey system that uses dualfrequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal tracking with positional and inertial measurement. The company has said that this combination integrates laser scanning and digital imaging.

Using 3D laser scanners, LIDAR, and/or camer

Austria-based crushing and screening specialist Rockster Recycler has reported that its products are now available in Russia. "We have been watching and studying the Russian market situation for a while and realised the great potential, which lies in this huge country," said Rockster CEO Wolfgang Kormann. "Not only the expansion of the infrastructurem, but also the growing demolition activities linked with the removal of many old buildings from the 18th or 19th century opens up a great demand for mobile rec

Germany-based Haver & Boecker (H&B) has celebrated its 40th anniversary with a family open day in Münster. The mineral screening company started when H&B acquired an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Odele in 1969. The company moved its screening operation to Münster in the early 1990s - a move the company said 'led to a great leap in innovation' including its wet screening technologies.

Caterpillar has added a Spanish version of its safety training to its dedicated safety website - www.safety.cat.com - which offers over 200 online training modules. According to Cat, the site is designed to help improve safety on any site from the smallest utility work to the largest mines and quarries.

Online Spanish-language modules are grouped into six categories: Construction, Mining and Heavy Equipment; Driver Safety; Environmental; General Safety; OSHA Essentials; and Supervisory Safety and there a

Sandvik has underlined its confidence in the Asian and South American market with the opening of two new production facilities. The Shanghai Jiading Industrial Zone facility in China is the company's largest factory to date with 24,000m2, which will be used to manufacture drill rigs, crushers and loaders. The second new facility in Vespasiano near Belo Horizonte, Brazil will be used to manufacture components for conveyor systems, as well as assemble conical and jaw crushers, vibrating screens, frames and dr

Harsco Metals (HM) plans to invest €10million in a new waste treatment centre in Firminy, central France. Earmarked to open in 2013, the centre is the outcome of a memorandum of understanding between the US-based industrial services firm and the French metallurgical company Aubert & Duval (AD). HM has developed a sorting technique for extracting metals, such as stainless steel, for recycling purposes, while others are transformed into aggregates to be used in road and civil engineering works.

Lafarge is aiming to reduce its costs by a total of €1.3billion over the next three years. Under its newly published 2012-15 business plan, the French construction materials group said it would look to make the substantial cost savings through improved productivity and reduced energy expenditure.

French group Imerys, which extracts and transforms minerals for industry and the construction sector, decided to close its tiling factory in Blajan (Haute-Garonne) in Midi-Pyrénées. Representatives of the 36 staff at the site have received the support of Arnaud Montebourg, the French minister for productive recovery, in their efforts to prevent the closure of the site.

The International Arbitration Court in the International Chamber of Commerce has ruled that Strabag’s decision to pull out of purchasing production facilities owned by Cemex in Austria and Hungary in 2009 was invalid.
The cancellation came after an anti-trust court in Austria gave the operation the go-ahead under certain conditions which did not satisfy Strabag. The European firm will now have to pay Cemex compensation.

Holcim Granulats has sponsored the restoration of a pool gathering ground runoff in La Rothière, north-central France. The aggregates firm paid for the restoration of pool and banks and protection from pollution to help preserve biodiversity including a certain species in danger, a type of midwife toad.

Cement production in Poland dropped by 7.2% to 5.77million tonnes in the first five months of 2012, compared to the same period of 2011. The Polish Association of Cement Producers (SPC) also claims that cement sales dropped by 8.5% to 5.89million tonnes between January 1 and May 31, 2012.

Veidekke Industri has bought an 80% stake in Norwegian asphalting company Kito Asfalt. From its base in the county of Buskerud, southern Norway, Kito Asfalt has an annual turnover of around €13.2million (NOK 100mn) and employs more than 50 staff.

Lafarge has claimed that 47% of its produced cement will have a reduced CO² level by the end of 2012.
The pledge is part of the French construction materials group’s PRO-Eco initiative, designed to facilitate sustainable construction for building professionals. The initiative is based around three areas: training and information to help professionals make smarter choices; reducing the environmental impact of its products; and developing efficient and economical building systems for sustainable construction

The 2012 edition of Hillhead opens its gates this month. Patrick Smith takes a look at some of the new equipment that will be on display Over 400 exhibitors are confirmed for Hillhead, recognised as the world’s biggest quarry equipment demonstration show. Running from 19–21 June at Tarmac’s Hillhead Quarry, near Buxton, in County Derbyshire, UK, domestic and international suppliers of plant, equipment, materials and services will be showing off their latest product, innovations and technological development

Following a trial of Metso Minerals' Nordberg Plant Management System at Hanson Aggregates' Ystrad Meurig Quarry, UK, the software has now been installed on a further six mobile machines at Lithalun Quarry.

Metso installed the remote control system on the Lokotrack LT300HP for Hanson last year to allow the company to test the advantages of the wireless communication capabilities. The system has now been extended to the LT110 primary crusher, another LT300HP and its two ST358 and ST620 mobile screens.

Tarmac has secured a place on the Eastern Highways Alliance, a major four-year framework contract valued at up to £75 million (€92.6 million). The Eastern Highways Alliance comprises a group of nine councils: Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Luton, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Essex and Southend on Sea.
The framework, which will start in May 2012 and run until May 2016 aims to help nine local authorities deliver significant savings. Tarmac’s National Contracting division is one of four co

EU policy on water: From the water framework directive to the blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources. The European Commission (EC) rationalised and enhanced the various measures previously undertaken in the water conservation field with its adoption of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in 2000. It followed great concern coming from the European Union (EU), citizens and Member States on the management of the most precious natural resource. The WFD’s main aim is embedding pre-existing measures (the

Organisers say that excitement is building ahead of Hillhead 2012 for what will be the UK’s biggest shop window yet for plant, equipment, materials and services for the minerals and construction industries. The event, which is offering more live demonstrations, more new plant and equipment and more exhibitors than ever before, is already a sell-out. “Visitors arriving at the show will be met by a much larger registration pavilion and additional outdoor plots within the showground, where an impressive 461 e