Displaying items by tag: UK

UK: Hanson Cement has appointed Mark Hickingbottom as its national commercial director for bulk cement and Andy Simpson as its national commercial director – packed. The appointments follow the recent retirement of commercial director Keith Ellis.

Hickingbottom has sales and marketing experience within Hanson’s bulk cement team, as well as a degree in Business Management. He is an associate member of The Institute of Concrete Technology and has spent over 12 years at Hanson delivering strategic plans across its product range.

Simpson, previously responsible for sales of all Hanson’s packed products, will build on developing trading relations with merchant customers as well as working with internal teams. He has over 15 years’ experience with Hanson and holds a degree in Business Studies.

UK: Quinn Building Products has appointed Lee Gillman as its new Sales and Marketing Director for the UK. Lee has worked for Quinn’s commercial team for three years. He has been promoted to lead on the management and development of core products within the Quinn portfolio in the UK. His experience working with merchants and contractors is intended to help the company continue to grow its client base on a national level.

UK: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has approved the acquisition by Breedon Aggregates of Hope Construction Materials subject to a sale of selected assets. Breedon has offered to sell 14 ready-mix concrete sites to Tarmac and the Concrete Company, which has been accepted by the CMA. As indicated in Breedon’s announcement on 21 July 2016, it now expects to complete the acquisition of Hope on 1 August 2016.

“The way is now clear for Hope to join us and create the UK’s largest independent construction materials group. It will give us a stronger platform for growth, with a broader geographical footprint, increased scale, an improved product mix, greater financial capacity and a team of highly talented people,” said Breedon’s Chairman, Peter Tom.

With the acquisition of Hope, Breedon Group, as the company will be named from 1 August 2016, Breedon will become the UK’s largest independent construction materials group, with the country’s largest cement plant, around 60 quarries, nearly 30 asphalt plants, approaching 200 ready-mixed concrete plants, some 2100 employees and approximately 750Mt of mineral reserves and resources. The enlarged group’s strategy will be to continue growing organically and through consolidation of the UK heavyside building materials sector.

UK: Hope Cement will use polyethylene (PE) packaging with the Roto-Packer Adams 10 from Haver & Boecker at its Dagenham terminal near London. The site started starting using the Adams system and a palletiser made by Newtec in June 2016, with an operation speed of 1200 bags/hr.

“We want the best benefits and services for our customers. PE packaging here plays an important role. Retailers and wholesalers can increase their stock levels and construction companies can leave their bags outside in the open without worry, no matter what the weather is,” said Gary Brennand, commercial director at Hope Cement. Brennand also cited safety and bag cleanliness as benefits of the new packaging.

UK: Firefighters were called to an incident at the Cemex South Ferriby cement plant on 17 July 2016. A spokesman for Humberside Fire and Rescue Service told the Scunthorpe Telegraph that a fire involved a fuel leak from a pipeline which spread to cables, pipework and a disused control room within the kiln room. Fire damage was reported to the pipework, cables and one wall of the control room. The remainder of the building was damaged by smoke.

India/Switzerland/UK: The five bidders that gave their final bids for Lafarge India’s 11Mt/yr cement business have been called to London, UK for the final leg of discussions, which started on 7 July 2016. Multinational bidders, including Mexico’s Cemex and China’s Anhui Conch, are believed to have bid aggressively. Domestic bidders Ajay Piramal Group, Nirma and Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Cement also submitted bids earlier in the week.

The bids are in the range of Euro1.19-1.33bn, which implies an enterprise value of US$108-121/t, comparable to UltraTech’s recent acquisition of JP Group’s cement assets for US$116/t.

“This discussion in London could take three to four days to finalise,” said a banker familiar with the development. “The winner will be decided not just on the price quoted for assets but also other conditions for the bid,” he said. Once the winning bid is decided, an exclusivity agreement will be signed with the bidder and it will take around three months to complete the deal.

UK: Flexicon has launched a new bulk bag-lifting frame with telescoping arms that accommodates bulk bags produced in a range of sizes. The lifting frame can be added to all BFC models of Flexicon's Bulk-Out discharger line or it can be used for up to 2t capacities to replace discharger lifting frames that use a hoist to position and suspend bulk bags.

The telescoping arms can be adjusted using clevis pins and safety clips to a range of settings to accommodate bulk bags from 81 - 119cm square at the upper sew seam. This adjustability also allows the lifting frame to work with rectangular bags. The frame is available in carbon steel with industrial coatings or stainless steel to industrial or sanitary standards.

Russia: Eurocement Group has said that it is targeting exports of cement at Denmark and the UK. Company chief executive officer Mikhail Skorokhod said that ‘contracts in Denmark and Britain are forthcoming’ in an interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers that was recorded ahead of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Exports by Eurocement to Finland and the Baltic states have been taking place since the end of 2015 with a gradual increase in sales volumes. In Finland the cement producer has a market share of 5%. Skorokhod added that the devaluation of the Russian Ruble has opened up export opportunities for the company. However, the company has not disclosed the volume of its exports, according to Interfax.

The overall volume of cement exports from Russia in January to April 2016 reached 230,000t with production of 13.6Mt, according to data from the Union of Cement Producers.

UK: Mechanical power transmission companies David Brown and Santasalo merged on 1 June 2016 to create David Brown Santasalo. Clyde Blowers Capital, an industrial investment firm based in Scotland, owns the business.

The merged company intends to serve markets in commodities, marine, defence, power, industrial and consumer end sectors. Its core business lies in gear engineering and power transmission products. The new company contains more than 1000 employees, seven major manufacturing plants and 23 service centres across six continents.

“David Brown Santasalo covers varied end markets including naval ships, minerals processing and the manufacture of a wide range of pulp and paper products. Across all these markets, our core differentiator is our fundamental capability to design and engineer gear systems for the world’s most demanding applications,” said Thomas Burley, Chief Executive Officer of David Brown Santasalo. He added that the company intends to focus on expanding its sales and service network, enhance its product offering and invest in its manufacturing base around the world.

UK: Kingfisher Industrial has started manufacturing its own K-CLAD 800 series wear resistant overlay range. As the range of K-CLAD 800 overlay plate is being manufactured in-house within the UK, the process of material quality (plate and powders), deposition process, overall flatness and thickness can be controlled by means of the company’s ISO 9001 quality control certification along with its factory production control (FPC) procedures underpinning its ISO 1090 execution class three certification.

The manufacturing process uses a bulk deposit method and fluxes are mechanically deposited onto a mild steel base plate via a submerged arc fusion bonded process. Kingfisher uses a new overlay system which incorporates electronic technology to enable production of an overlay with total carbide saturation (TCS) affording increased wear resistance.

The K-CLAD 800 range can be used by industries that handle materials including ores, cement, clinker, aggregates, coal and glass. It can be supplied in sheet form or in pre-designed tailored shapes to suit its application. Typical application for the series includes the protection of transfer chutes, vibratory feeders and screens, dump trucks, hoppers and fan blades.

The UK-based wear protection specialist will be promoting the new product at the Hillhead quarrying, construction and recycling exhibition taking place in late June 2016 in the UK.