Search

Screg Est and GSM’s Fraimbois Granulats quarry in France has just inaugurated a new €2million facility with capacity to produce 180,000tonnes of rolled and crushed alluvial material per year. The material produced at the new site is said to be suitable for ready mix concrete and prefabrication applications among others. The safety of staff during production and maintenance operations has also been strengthened and environmental concerns are also said to have been taken into account. In 2009, the operating a

Belgian baron Jean-Louise de Cartier is reportedly refusing to pay his 70% plus share of the €100million fine placed on the building materials manufacturer Eternit. Cartier and the Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny were condemned to 16 years in prison by an Italian court after thousands of their Italian workers died.

Danish aircrete producer H+H boosted turnover to €39.96million (DKK 297mn) in Q1 2012, compared to €37.27million (DKK 277mn) in the same three-month period of 2011.
The firm’s EBITDA was a loss of €269,113 (DKK 2mn) compared with a loss of €1.34million (DKK 10mn) in Q1 2011. The figure before tax in Q1 2012 was a €4.84million (DKK 36mn) loss compared with a €6.19million (DKK 46mn) loss between 1 January and 31 March 2011.

British Precast, the Leicester, UK-based trade federation for the UK concrete products industry, has held its annual conference PRECAST2012. The event was held, together with the annual members meeting, EXPO trade show and Best Practice Awards lunch at the King Power Stadium, Leicester, and when 400 delegates attended. There were 50 trade stands, and 30 companies vying for annual awards. Taking over as president for 2012-14 was Andy Dix, managing director of member Charcon Construction Solutions, who paid t

Swecon, Volvo Construction Equipment's dealer in Sweden, has released the world's first high-speed performance concept wheeled loader, the Volvo L60G PCP, which has set a new world record. The new machine, supported by Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE), Volvo Polestar Racing and a number of subcontractors, set the new world speed record for wheeled loaders at Sweden’s Anderstorp Raceway when it was clocked at 103km/hour with experienced operator Karin Olsson behind the wheel. The machine is a faster

SLR Consulting has been appointed by Celtic Energy and Oak Regeneration as the master-planners on major regeneration projects located at two surface mining sites in South Wales. The SLR master-planning team will manage the transformation of the open cast site at East Pit in the Amman Valley into an international tourism and leisure destination and the former Margam mine site, near Port Talbot, into a new mixed use eco-village on the M4 corridor.
The East Pit project is the first of its kind in Wales and

Quarry operators looking to buy new equipment this year may well come away from a dealer or an exhibition stand in some confusion. The reason for this understandable bafflement is exhaust emissions, or possibly the lack of them.
Many will be familiar with the European Union’s Stage IIIB and US Tier 4 Interim emissions standards that affect most off-highway equipment, and manufacturers have been falling over each other to launch new kit equipped with these engines for some time now. But things are not as si

Lakshmi Stones is the first company in Bangalore, India, to buy an Atlas Copco XAHS 186 portable compressor, and it has been added to the company’s existing fleet of six XAHS units The company, which quarries pink granite at the site 60km from the city, has invested in the newly-launched Atlas Copco XAHS 186 oil-injected rotary screw portable compressor and has ordered a second. Lakshmi Stones has an existing fleet of Atlas Copco XA 176 compressors, which it has been using for the past few years. Bangalore

The sand and gravel pit and concrete batching and distribution business of C&G Concrete as acquired by new owners Breedon Aggregates in July 2011 Having acquired the business, the need to improve the output from Norton Bottoms quarry, near Newark, County Nottinghamshire, central England, with a new long-reach prime mover was identified. “The Norton Bottoms operation is a critical piece of the jigsaw in supplying the other newly-acquired batching plants and it became immediately clear that a larger capacity

The sand and gravel pit and concrete batching and distribution business of C&G Concrete as acquired by new owners Breedon Aggregates in July 2011 Having acquired the business, the need to improve the output from Norton Bottoms quarry, near Newark, County Nottinghamshire, central England, with a new long-reach prime mover was identified. “The Norton Bottoms operation is a critical piece of the jigsaw in supplying the other newly-acquired batching plants and it became immediately clear that a larger capacity

Successful quarry restoration projects in Europe and further afield have been completed by the aggregates industry as Patrick Smith reports With 23,000 sites across Europe, the aggregates industry is well placed to make a significant, positive contribution to halting the loss of biodiversity. According to the European Aggregates Association (UEPG) this has been true for many years, with all the major (and many smaller) quarry operators carrying out restoration projects. There are many cases of highly succes

Stelex Construction Equipment has completed a double deal in France with the sale of a new HT182 heavy duty static Hercules trommel plant plus the overhaul of the customer’s existing machine. The bespoke projects, made to the customer’s requirements, were manufactured in the UK. The new HT182 trommel, mounted on a steel skid frame, consists of a 1.8m diameter, 8m long barrel and is producing clean stone for a range of applications from contaminated as-dug material at a rate of up to 500tonnes/hour. The hea

The French aggregates market in 2011 was better than its predecessor but forecasts for 2012 are more circumspect as Julie-Anne Ryan reports France unsurprisingly houses one of the most important European construction markets. In 2010 the sector was worth €123 billion and employed 1.25 million people. Of that, aggregates accounted for more than €3.5 billion and employed nearly 14,500 people: the country’s total aggregates production was 365 million tonnes. As final quarter and full-year results throughout th

The state of the aggregates industry in Britain is reflected in much of Europe. Robert Camp discusses some of the issues that will be facing the sector this year The Mineral Products Association (MPA), the British trade organisation for the UK aggregates industry, has recently issued its survey results for Great Britain during the last quarter of 2011.
These show that in Britain, aggregates sales volumes were flat during 2011 and remain 30% below pre-recession levels. Infrastructure projects, such as road

A number of major mining and other industry infrastructure projects are being implemented in the Siberian Federal District. A new €488.18million 5,000tonne capacity a year polycrystalline silicone plant in the Irkutsk region is being funded by the Nitol Group. The Kemerovo region will house the new €112.9million Kaskad concentrating mill with a coal processing capacity of 4millionn tonnes per year serving Vinogradovsky, Karagailinskaya and Sibirskaya mines. The mill is being funded by Kuzbasskaya Toplivnaya

Turkish marble producer Az-Tas Mermer is planing to increase its production capacity with a new €1.17million factory in 2013. The firm currently has a factory located on 16,000m² of land in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Active in the marble quarrying sector since 1987, Az-Tas Mermer aims to employ between 30 and 40 new workers as part of the new factory project.

Spanish cement firm Cementos Molins posted a consolidated profit of €24.3million in 2011. It was said to be mainly supported by its subsidiaries in Mexico and Argentina, which accounted for €31million and €27.4million respectively. In Spain the company lost more than €13million. Its subsidiaries in Tunisia and Bangladesh also presented negative results, as they lost €5.8million and €5.5million respectively.

German construction company and air-placed concrete specialist Torkret Substanzbau has filed for insolvency. The Essen-based company employs 457 people and has 11 branches in Germany and one in Luxembourg.

Bell Equipment is to launch its much-anticipated E-Series ADT at Hillhead, while driving home the importance of fuel-efficiency. “With a new-shape hood, more imposing styling and extensive technological improvements, the E-series looks well poised to grow Bell Equipment’s proud heritage as a premium ADT supplier and is planned to go into production in 2013,” says the company. “The E-Series promises higher payloads across the range as well as improved safety features and better durability.”

Hewitt Robins International has completed a turnkey project to replace a Niagara screen at Lafarge Whisby, County Lincolnshire, eastern England within a four-week timescale. The existing Niagara screen was non-repairable, so delivery of a new screen in the shortest timescale was critical. The new Hewitt Robins V-13 1.8 x 6.0 double- deck replacement screen was designed, manufactured, installed and commissioned in four weeks, allowing Whisby to stop production while the machine was being built.