Displaying items by tag: UK

UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) Cement’s five members – Breedon Cement, Cemex UK, Hanson Cement, Lafarge Cement and Tarmac – saw their direct CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement rise by 0.6% year-on-year to 633kg in 2018 from 629kg in 2017. Refuse-derived fuel rates in 2018 were 43.2%, down by 0.5% from 43.8Mt in 2017. The industry achieved its seventh consecutive year in which producers sent zero process waste to landfill. Overall sales fell by 1.0% year-on-year.

UK: Cemex has agreed a new partnership with Turners, a privately owned transport company. This contract will see Turners operating 20 bulk cement tankers for Cemex across the country. No value for the deal has been disclosed.

“We are always looking for ways to improve our logistics operation, and this partnership with Turners will create new flexibility in our service, thanks to their large fleet of safe and efficient heavy goods vehicles (HGV),” said David Hart, Cemex’s Supply Chain Director for UK & France.

UK: Bunting has appointed Alan Why as its UK Sales Manager overseeing all external sales activity. His engineering career began as a radio-frequency (RF) electronics design engineer and evolved into the role of Sales & Marketing Director of a small electronics company serving the defence electronics market. Why has developed magnet-related business for Bunting since he joined the company in 2013. The responsibilities of his new role cover a wider product range including magnets, magnetic separators and metal detectors.

Bunting is a designer and manufacturer of magnetic separators, metal detectors, magnets, magnetic assemblies and magnetising equipment. The Bunting European manufacturing facilities are in Redditch, just outside Birmingham, and Berkhamsted, both in the UK.

UK: Cemex has entered a conditional agreement with Breedon Group for the divestment of certain UK assets, including 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries and a cement terminal for Euro211m including Breedon Group’s assumption of Euro27.3m lease liability. Cemex UK retains the 1.2Mt/yr Rugby cement plant in Warwickshire. Breedon Group CEO Pat Ward said, “We expect the deal to be accretive to both earnings and free cash flow in the first full year, with a positive ongoing impact on the cash generation of the enlarged Group.” Cemex CEO Fernando Gonzalez said that the transaction ‘further rebalances our portfolio into our core markets, enhances our profitability and enables us to continue to focus on deleveraging.’

The businesses being handed over also include concrete products operations, depots and asphalt plants and fall under all six of Breedon Group’s regional divisions. Ward has said the acquisitions will significantly enlarge the group’s footprint in underrepresented divisions, implying that the cement terminal in question may be the Leith terminal in Scotland or the Newport terminal in Wales, two regions in which the company currently has no terminals to receive cement produced at its 1.5Mt/yr integrated Hope cement plant in Derbyshire. Breedon Group will seek to hire employees working on the operations from Cemex and expects to bring its total UK personnel to 3600 people as a result. It says its mineral reserves will exceed 1.0Bt.

Cemex UK retains 259 concrete plants and 36 aggregates quarries and dredging operations. Cemex said it ‘will retain a substantial integrated business in the UK encompassing cement production.’

UK: Hanson’s ship Arco Avon has uncovered a mammoth tooth whilst dredging the seabed for aggregates for use in cement production off the east coast of Norfolk. Natural History Museum palaeontologists have identified the specimen has having belonged to a 35-year-old animal that died between 10,000 and 0.35m years ago. The dredging lane, 10km offshore from Great Yarmouth, has previously turned out mammoth vertebrae and a tusk fragment.

UK: Mick George Concrete has announced a contract with Highways England for the construction of ancillary features such as kerbs, drains and mass fill usages on the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge in early 2020. The project will utilise 500m3 of Cemfree concrete from DB Group (Holdings) ltd., which can be produced releasing just 20% of the CO₂ of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The value of the project, to which Mick George Concrete has dedicated a 100t silo for Cemfree storage, is Euro1.76bn.

UK: Quinn has announced that it will proceed with the exclusive supply of its Master Grade cement to the UK-based wholesale builders’ merchant National Buying Group (NBG) until the end of 2021, extending the term of the companies’ 2018 agreement. “Our partnership with NGB has made a significant contribution to the success of our bagged cement range, so we’re delighted to agree an extension to our exclusivity deal with NBG for supply to their merchant members,” said Lee Gillman, Quinn’s Great Britain Sales and Marketing Director. Quinn’s bagged range also consists of Premium Grade and General Purpose cement.

UK/Ireland: Sean Quinn has bought ‘substantial’ tracts of limestone-rich land in Cavan and Fermanagh on 99-year leases, giving him sole extraction rights, over the past three and half years since his final severance with Quinn Industrial Holdings in mid-2016, according to the Sunday Times. The purchases may have been aimed at strengthening his position in his campaign to re-attain control over the company. It has stated that it has succeeded in supplementing its on-site limestone supply with material from further afield. “These materials are of a higher quality,” said a Quinn Industrial Holding spokesperson.

UK: The board of Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) has voted to send official correspondence to Sean Quinn, expected to contain a request that he keep his distance from operations. Quinn visited the company’s 0.5Mt/yr Ballyconnell plant on 21 November 2019 and quarries earlier in the month. The Sunday Independent reported that Quinn, who left his position as a consultant to his former enterprise in 2016, may be asked to return his company cars - a Range Rover and Audi A6. Quinn has condemned attacks on staff, including the kidnap and torture of executive director Kevin Lunney on 17 September 2019, for which four men appeared in court charged with assault and false imprisonment on 26 November 2019.

Ireland: CRH’s sales revenue grew by 4% on a like-for-like basis to Euro21.8bn in the first nine months of 2019. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 7% to Euro3.2bn. Sales grew fastest in its European and American heavy materials divisions with earnings growth more pronounced in North America than in Europe. The group reported growth in ready-mixed concrete and cement sales in North America as it continued to consolidate Ash Grove into the business. Sales in Europe were generally good, although declining construction activity in the UK was noted due to market uncertainty related to the country’s attempt to leave the European Union. CRH also reported falling sales volumes in the Philippines due to a slowdown in infrastructure spending.