Displaying items by tag: UK
Tarmac completes repairs on excavator at Dunbar quarry
24 September 2021UK: Tarmac has completed a seven-week repair job on its PC2000 backhaul excavator at its Dunbar, East Lothian, quarry. The East Lothian Courier newspaper has reported that the work consisted of a rebuild of all major components, including the 11t bucket, pins and bushes. The equipment has been in service since 2014. It will next require servicing in 2026. Marubeni Komatsu carried out the work.
Quarry manager Mark Grieve said “With the excavator playing an absolutely key role in our process, this was a major project for Tarmac Dunbar.”
UK: ZwickRoell UK and Ireland has begun the construction of its new headquarters in Worcester, Worcestershire. The facilities will consist of a customer experience centre, a suite of offices, meeting and seminar rooms and a comprehensively equipped demonstration laboratory. Managing director Benno Sadowski said “We are very happy to be establishing a new facility in the Worcester Six Business Park, with its excellent strategic location in the UK.” He added “With our experience of more than 160 years in the materials testing equipment business, we are always investigating ways in which we can better support our customers with our advanced technology testing solutions in addition to creating relationships which embody our brand, vision and values.”
Hanson updates on cement and building materials supply to Hinkley Point C power plant
22 September 2021UK: Hanson has delivered 171,000t of cement to the site of the upcoming Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset. It has also delivered 1Mm3 of ready-mix concrete via the customer’s on-site batching plants, 5Mt of aggregates and 443,000t of sand. Its Port Talbot site in Neath Port Talbot has supplied 230,000t of Regen ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) for use in concrete production, reducing the product’s carbon footprint by a total of 200,000t compared with concrete produced using ordinary Portland cement (OPC) only.
Bunting opens Bunting-Redditch Customer Experience Centre
21 September 2021UK: Bunting has opened the Bunting-Redditch Customer Experience Centre at its Bunting-Redditch facility in Redditch, Worcestershire. The centre is equipped with high-intensity magnetic separators, eddy current separators and a revolutionary electrostatic separator. Bunting said that it will enable its engineers to work in partnership both remotely and at site.
General manager Adrian Coleman said “Having the ability to test and prove the separation capabilities of a specific machine is priceless. There is a constant flow of materials arriving to be tested and being returned. We are fortunate enough to have unique laboratory-scale technology that enables separations that are simply not possible in other test houses. Investing in our new Customer Experience Centre has already generated orders that previously we would not have secured.”
Hanson truck drivers vote on strike action
14 September 2021UK: 200 Hanson truck drivers began voting on proposed strike action on 10 September 2021. Building Design Online News has reported that the drivers’ union, Unite, has proposed the measure in response to a ‘hefty pay cut.’ The HeidelbergCement subsidiary offered a 2.5% pay rise to truck drivers for 2022. The union said that UK inflation was currently at 3.9%. It added that a strike would lead to a cement shortage affecting some of the country’s largest projects, including the HS2 high-speed railway. Voting will conclude on 24 September 2021.
Cemex UK completes rail depot upgrades
13 September 2021UK: Cemex UK has carried out track improvements and extensions at its Attercliffe, Small Heath and Bletchley rail depots. The works included a new siding and storage bays for offloading at Small Heath. Meanwhile, improvements at the Attercliffe depot will enable delivery vehicles to safely use the same area in the day as trains do at night.
Rail and sea manager Mark Grimshaw-Smith said “The summer months have provided us with the perfect opportunity to complete a considerable programme of investment into track at three of our rail depots. These sites are all very different, and spread out across the country, but they are all important parts of our rail network and ripe for development.” He added, “As our use of trains to transport our materials increases, it is vital that we have the infrastructure in place to support this. Further investment is planned at some of our other UK railheads over the coming months.”
The company is in the process of a transition to rail and sea transport from road. Progress in 2020 eliminated 17,500t of CO2 emissions from 150,000 road movements not taken.
Cemex UK relaunches pallet recovery service
09 September 2021UK: Cemex UK has relaunched its used pallet collection service. The scheme aims to reduce timber waste in its supply chain, according to the company. It forms part of its Future in Action – Committed to Net Zero CO2 climate action strategy. Its partner ELM will collect stockists’ pallets free of charge for refurbishment and return to Cemex UK. It will reuse all repaired pallets and recycle those damaged beyond repair.
Packed cement sales manager Graeme Barton said “We want to make life easier for our merchants to work with us to reduce waste. We’d like to make pallet recovery part of the standard delivery process, as many pallets still end up in landfill. It is increasingly costly to dispose of pallet waste and there is far greater value to be gained by recycling and reuse. Rising timber costs, combined with pallet shortages, means there is a heightened need to conserve and maintain pallets throughout the supply chain. Recovery is considerably more cost effective than buying new replacements.” He added “Pallets are a standard format in transporting building products and contribute a significant financial and environmental cost which needs to be captured by the user. We saw a similar situation with supermarkets and plastic bags, but we’d rather not wait for legislation to enforce this; we’d really like to make a difference now with preventative action. The pallet recovery service is regenerative by design and aims to support the key principals of the circular economy to benefit business, society and the environment. If we all pull together it will have a significant impact across the whole supply chain.”
Mannok commissions new bagging system from Haver & Boecker
03 September 2021UK: Mannok has commissioned a Euro2.1m bagging system supplied by Germany-based Haver & Boecker. The order included a Roto-Packer Adams 10 spout bag filling system and a new automatic film reel changer, designed to run at 1200 bags/hr. Installation took place in the second quarter of 2021 and the new bagging unit is now in production. The upgrade now gives Mannok the capacity to pack around 50t/hr of cement in weatherproof bags.
Chief executive officer Liam McCaffrey said, “This is a major investment in our Cement operations which completes the second phase of our investment in our weatherproof bagging line, upgrading it from a single to a double bagging line with a significant increase in output capacity. Our initial investment to bring our weatherproof polyethylene bags to the market was in response to demand from Great Britain-based merchants and we later introduced the bags to the Irish market, where the response was equally positive.”
The cement producer operates an integrated plant at Derrylin, Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. It previously installed a weatherproof bagging line in 2018 that allows it to extend its range of bagged cements.
UK: Finland-based Metso Outotec has awarded a contract to Duo Group to provide distribution services for its British aggregates equipment and services business. Under the terms of the contract, Duo Group will deliver the supplier’s products and provide technical support to its quarry customers in England, Scotland and Wales. Metso Outotec presently provides both services itself. The contract will enter force in September 2021.
Distribution management senior vice president Olli-Pekka Oksanen said “We are very pleased to announce the partnership with Duo. The partnership expands our distribution model to include the larger aggregates quarrying customers in the UK. With Duo’s local presence and world class know-how, we will improve our ability to offer more comprehensive aggregate solutions and aftermarket support with the agility and responsiveness appreciated by the quarrying customers.”
MPA welcomes UK hydrogen strategy but warns of costs
19 August 2021UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has welcomed the government's UK Hydrogen Strategy but warned that the costs of production, transmission and distribution need to be shared by the whole UK economy. The state plan was published in mid-August 2021 and it sets out how progress will be made over the next decade to deliver 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, as part of the UK's drive to achieving its net zero targets. A consultation has also been launched to identify how the current cost gap between low carbon hydrogen and fossil fuels can be overcome.
Richard Leese, Director of Industrial Policy, Energy and Climate Change at the MPA said, "it's now critical that energy intensive industries, including the UK cement sector, which are essential for our economy and way of life, are not unduly penalised by additional policy costs for the production, transmission and distribution of hydrogen on top of already high electricity costs and carbon-related environmental taxes. Hydrogen development costs need to be shared by the wider economy to encourage acceleration of the technology and ensure industrial gas users and hydrogen generated power users are not placed at any further international competitive disadvantage.” Leese added that switching fuels away from fossil fuels, including the potential to adopt hydrogen technology, was already one of seven key levers in MPA UK Concrete's Roadmap to Beyond Net Zero.
The MPA is currently undertaking demonstrations of hydrogen as well as plasma technology, which are being partly funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The projects follow a BEIS-funded feasibility study in 2019 which found that a combination of 70% biomass, 20% hydrogen and 10% plasma energy could be used to eliminate fossil fuel CO₂ emissions from cement manufacturing.
The association has also welcomed the government's announcement of a Euro47m Red Diesel Replacement competition to help develop diesel alternatives as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. However, it renewed its call for a delay in the removal of the red diesel rebate, scheduled for April 2022, and estimated to cost the mineral products sector alone nearly Euro120m/yr.