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Lafarge has strengthened its ready mixed concrete business in France with the opening of a new plant in Breteuil-sur-Iton. The new facility has capacity to produce up to 40,000m3 of concrete each year, including specialist mixes. The new plant replaces an older unit at Conches-sur-Ouche.

Providing local community support in development is the key target of Cemex’s launch of its Building the Future Foundation to the Czech Republic. The scheme promotes education, research, and development, to protect the environment and its biodiversity. The project also aims to improve housing and the infrastructure, and to provide backing for cultural and sports activities in the regions where the company operates.

Following Heidelberg's record breaking acquisition of Hanson last year, the company has set up a new Competence Centre for Materials. Claire Symes interviews the man charged with leading the business in Europe, Gerhard Mühlbeyer. The €11.7billion price tag paid by Heidelberg Cement for Hanson last year may seem high but according to Heidelberg the good fit means that it is having a very positive effect on its business. In the latest results for the first nine months of 2008, Hanson's business bolstered Heid

Holcim has reported rising sales volumes across cement, aggregates and ready mixed concrete with sales up 2.5% from 2009 levels to record a total of CHF22billion in 2010. The largest gains were in aggregates with a 10.1% increase in volumes and ready mixed concrete with a 9.8% increase. A release from the company said, “Despite the challenging environment in many markets, Holcim increased its sales volumes. This volume growth is broad-based, with group companies in all five group regions contributing to the

Combined efforts by UK trade associations and companies working in the concrete sector to become seen as a leader in sustainable construction by 2012 have been recognised with a national award. The Sustainable Concrete Strategy was singled out as the winner of the 2010 Trade Association Forum (TAF) Best Practice Awards for Environmental Initiative.

CRH has reported that the cumulative rate of like-for-like sales decline has continued to ease the year progresses, according to a trading statement from the company. By end June, the year to date decline had reduced to approximately 10% compared with the 14% decline to end April. Against this backdrop CRH now expects that EBITDA for the seasonally less profitable first half of the year will show a decline of approximately 20%. First-half profit before tax is expected to be close to breakeven after restruct

Real-time monitoring of vibrating screen performance could help guarantee reliability, according to Metso Minerals. Performance monitoring software is becoming a common feature on construction equipment but now the benefits may also be seen on vibrating screens. Metso Minerals has joined forces with Metso's Automation division to develop the new technology.

Meeting the future demand for materials in a sustainable way will be the focus of this year’s RWTH Aachen University’s Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry conference. The organisers have just announced the programme for the three day event at is to be held in Aachen, Germany from 14 to 17 June 2011.

TrafikverketCemex France has underlined its commitment to the environment with the continuation of its cooperation with bird protection agency Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux (LPO) for the eighth year running. Michel Andre, president of Cemex France, and Pierre Boilerman, director of aggregates activities with Cemex signed the deal with LPO president Allain Bougrain-Dubourg at the end of last month. Under the deal, which was first signed in 2003, the LPO works closely with Cemex’s environmental teams i

Ten years after the initial investigation, Skanska, NCC and the Swedish Transport Administration reach an agreement regarding asphalt cartel activities in eight municipalities. The municipalities of Tranås, Kristianstad, Värnamo, Bromölla, Götene, Ulricehamn, Vaggeryd, and Klippan will receive €2.2million in an out of court settlement on the understanding that their lawsuits against the companies will be dropped.

Production of quicklime at Tarmac Buxton Lime & Cement’s Tunstead and Hindlow sites has been boosted with the installation of new double roll crushers from BJD crushers. The new crushers are part of a major upgrade by Tarmac which has included a new Maerz lime kiln at Tunstead.

Cemex has announced that it is to sell assets in Kentucky, US to Bluegrass Materials Company for US$90million. Under the agreement, Cemex will sell seven aggregates quarries, three resale aggregate distribution centres, and one concrete block manufacturing facility, which it describes as non-core assets. The operations were acquired by Cemex as part of its buyout of Rinker in 2007 and transfer of these to Bluegrass is expected to take place int eh third quarter of this year. Proceeds from the sale will be i

Imagine being able to model aggregate production right from the feed hopper to the output conveyor and predict actual productivity? Well according to Bedrock Software, this can easily be achieved. Growing emphasis on cost per tonne production means that getting the maximum performance out of crushing and screening equipment is essential. But with so many different settings on all the machines on offer, it can be difficult to know exactly what the optimum is.

Italcementi has announced that it has become the first Italian construction materials company to join the United Nations initiative to safeguard the social and environmental sustainability of economic growth processes. The company’s membership of the Global Compact was formally ratified with a letter from CEO Carlo Pesenti, to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, declaring the group’s support for the initiative’s 10 principles with regard to human rights, labour, protection of the environment

Lafarge will refinance debts in the US with funds raised from a new US$550million bond placed in the region. The five year maturity bond has a fixed coupon of 5.5% and has been offered to institutional investors.

UK-based Quarry Manufacturing & Supplies is celebrating successful installation of a new crusher into a Russian quarry – the company’s first sale in the country. QMS has installed the 250tonne per hour electrically driven B-Series B4 cone crusher at the new Karelia-based quarry operation. According to QMS, the quarry operator opted for the B-Series model because it wanted a crusher to deliver optimum size and shape products, as well as good build quality and value for money. Following commissioning, the cru

Bernhard Pagenkemper has been appointed as the new machinery division sales director at Haver & Boecker in Germany. Pagenkemper, who has worked at Haver & Boecker for 20 years, previously headed up the company’s cement business unit. In his new role he is responsible for the cement, building materials and minerals, chemicals, mineral processing technology and technical customer service divisions.

Former CRH finance director Glenn Culpepper has joined US-based Summit Materials as its chief financial officer. Summit CEO Tom Hill said, “We are delighted to have Glenn join the Summit team. He brings with him a deep understanding of the operations and has experience in negotiating and closing multiple acquisitions in our industry. We have worked together for many years and he has all the skills to help us accelerate our growth strategy.”

UK-based Hercules trommel manufacturer has reported that it had a very successful showing at June’s Hillhead exhibition with a number of confirmed orders taken at the show. The main focus of the show for Stelex was the new 500tonne per hour MKIII HT182M mobile trommel which was set up for cleaning and grading the blasted rock for further processing by some of the crushing and screening units also operating in the demonstration areas.

Lafarge has announced that it has sold a 11.2% stake in Malaysia-based Lafarge Malayan Cement Berhad through a placement on Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad. The company has retained a 51% shareholding in the Malaysian business and the €141million raised by the sale is in line with Lafarge’s divestment programme announced in February.