Displaying items by tag: Aggregates

US: The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) has signed a contract with drone supplier Botlink InSite to serve its drone surveying and mapping needs for management of aggregates used in building transport infrastructure.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Terri Zimmerman said, “We’re excited to add the NDDOT to our ever-growing list of customers. Our users see real cost savings by quickly getting accurate data, including reducing overproduction and underproduction.” She added that the drones can also serve cement companies in managing their raw materials stores.

Kazakhstan: EuroChem subsidiary EuroChem Karatau has entered into talks with Zhambyl Region governor Berdibek Saparbayev over plans for the construction of a mineral fertilisers plant at a total investment cost of US$800m. Kazakhstan Newsline has reported that the facility will additionally produce aggregates for use in cement production. The plant will exploit the region’s Karatau-Zhanatassky phosphorite basin, from which the company has already extracted and carried out primary processing on phosphorite ore.

UK: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it will consider the undertakings offered by Breedon Group to which its deal with Cemex UK for acquisition of several of the latter’s ready-mix and aggregates operations would be subject. The regulator explained its ruling by saying, “There are reasonable grounds for believing that the undertakings might be accepted by the CMA under the Enterprise Act 2002.” This may lead to the completion of the acquisitions, which were agreed on 21 January 2020.

UK: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that Breedon Group’s acquisition of a minority of Cemex UK’s ready-mix and aggregates operations “may lead to a substantial lessening of competition in the supply of ready-mixed concrete, non-specialist aggregates or asphalt in 15 local markets across the UK” in a letter to the group. The Herald newspaper has reported that the potentially affected markets are in localities where Breedon Group is already dominant, such as eastern Scotland and the East Midlands.

CMA senior director Colin Rafferty said, “As consumers source the majority of these materials locally, it’s vital to ensure that enough competition will remain at the local level so there’s enough choice and prices remain fair.” If it fails to respond to the CMA’s concerns by 2 September 2020, Breedon Group will face an in-depth Phase 2 investigation into the deal.

UK: Breedon Group says it has completed the acquisition of selected assets from Cemex. Following instructions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) the assets will be operated as Pinnacle Construction Materials, a newly-created separate business led by its own management team and operating from its own offices. Pinnacle will offer a range of heavy building materials, including aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, concrete products and cement, together with contracting services, from approximately 100 locations in England, Wales and Scotland.

The CMA is still investigating the acquisition and plans to announce its initial conclusions in late August 2020. Breedon Group expects to integrate Pinnacle into its UK business at a later date once this process is fully completed. Cemex agreed to sell Breedon Group some of its UK assets in January 2020. This included 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries and a cement terminal for Euro211m.

Mexico: Cemex says that it is involved in a working group “focussed on the application of FastCarb aggregates to concrete production” as part of its efforts towards net-zero CO₂ concrete production. FastCarb, administrated by the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board, is a project aimed at the production of aggregates from recycled concrete containing trapped carbon dioxide (CO₂) requisitioned from industrial exhaust streams.

Cemex said, “After completing the first phase of the experimental approach at the laboratory level with promising preliminary results, the project is now entering the second phase seeking to tackle the industrial approach. In this industrial approach phase, Cemex was recently assigned to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of the carbonated recycled concrete aggregates when used in ready-mix concrete in the laboratory facilities at the Cemex France National Technical Centre.”

France: UK-based Carbon8 Systems has announced plans for the commercial implementation of its carbon capture and use (CCU) system at Vicat’s Montalieu integrated cement plant in France. It follows successful demonstration projects at cement plants in the UK and Canada.

The company’s CO₂ntainer product will be deployed directly onsite at the plant and integrated into Vicat's existing industrial processes. It will capture CO₂ directly from the plant's flue gas emissions and use this as part of its Accelerated Carbonisation Technology (ACT) process. This accelerates the carbonation of cement bypass dust into lightweight aggregates. In its first phase of operation it will process and convert up to 12,000t of cement bypass dust.

US: Mexico-based Cemex has announced its investment in Arqlite, a producer of aggregates from waste plastic. Arqlite won the Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition in 2019. Other investors in the company, which began its research and development process in Argentina in 2016, include Kamay Ventures and Chris Graff.

The Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition 2020 remains open to applicants until 26 July 2020.

Canada: Haver & Boecker Niagara has launched a new service programme. Called PROcheck, the programme conducts operational analysis of screens used in raw materials processing. PROcheck reports to Haver & Boecker, which is then able to recommend to producers the best practices for raw materials processing proficiency. Haver & Boecker Niagara North America and Australia president Karen Thompson said, “By partnering with our customers through the PROcheck service programme, we are monitoring the efficiency of their screening process to identify potential problems early on.”

Thompson said, “We are experts at looking at the big picture,” “We engineer and manufacture both vibrating screens and screen media, and this gives us the insight to offer valuable advice producers won’t find elsewhere.”

Argentina: Loma Negra’s sales of cement, masonry and lime fell by 26% year-on-year to 1.13Mt in first quarter of 2020. The decline was driven by the coronavirus lockdown in Argentina, where the subsidiary of Brazil’s InterCement has most of its sales. Concrete and aggregate sales volumes declined also. The company’s new revenue dropped by 29.6% to US$115m and its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 17.9% to US$38.6m. However, the company’s accountant adjustment for use in so-called ‘hyperinflationary economies’ made a negative impact on these figures. With this adjustment removed both revenue and earnings reportedly rose in the first quarter.

“By the end of the first quarter the coronavirus broke out, bringing additional challenges to the already adverse background,” said Sergio Faifman, Loma Negra’s chief executive officer (CEO). He added that cement demand in Argentina nationally contracted by around 29% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020.

The cement producer temporarily suspended its production facilities and its L´Amalí Expansion project in late March 2020 due to the government lockdown. Production and dispatches of cement were restarted in early April 2020 following the implementation of new sanitation protocols. The company has now resumed working on its upgrade project at L´Amalí.