August 2025

UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has appointed Jon Flitney, Michael Conroy, Liam Forde, Steve Callow and Mike Haynes to new roles at the organisation. This follows the appointment of Jon Prichard as the MPA’s chief executive officer in October 2022, succeeding Nigel Jackson.

Jon Flitney has joined MPA Cement as Energy and Climate Change Manager. He will be working with the MPA Cement Climate Change and CO2 Reduction group providing support to sector decarbonisation and associated policies. Flitney joins from the British Ceramic Confederation (BCC) where he has worked across energy, environment, climate change and decarbonisation policy areas for over six years. He also previously worked on air quality and environmental protection for local authorities and the Environment Agency, covering a variety of manufacturing industries.

Michael Conroy joins as Manager - Environment, Safety & Regulatory Affairs for MPA Cement. He has over 20 years’ experience in the mineral products industry and ,since 2016, this has been focussed on environmental management, compliance, permitting and regulation across various sectors within the industry. His role at MPA involves working with members in the cement sector and liaising with the environmental regulators and relevant government departments on behalf of the members to ensure the sector is recognised in a positive and beneficial way. He is secretariat for the Cement Regulatory Interface Group (RIG), which meets regularly to discuss environmental regulatory matters that affect and impact the UK cement sector.

Liam Forde has joined BRMCA/MPA Ready-mixed Concrete as Construction Manager. His main responsibilities will be working with MPA members, the Concrete Centre and UK Concrete to promote safety, best practice, and ready-mixed concrete as the best solution for sustainable and resilient construction. Forde is a chartered civil engineer and joins from BAM Nuttall having had a background in both design and site environments.

Steve Callow has joined as Manager, Masonry and Concrete Products. He joins from Marshalls where he was Specification Manager. He also has sector experience gained from roles in FP McCann, CPM, Milbury Systems and Carillion.
Mike Haynes has joined MPA as British Lime Association Director. He joins MPA after 18 years in the lime industry working in the sales and customer services teams responsible for Construction and Civil Engineering markets and progressing to managing the customer services team. Prior to this, Haynes worked for contractors and consultants in those markets, as an engineer and project manager.

France: Ecocem has appointed Christian Clergue as its European Standardisation Manager. He started his career in the late 1980s working for Vicat, according to AC Presse. During his time with the group he led its SigmaBeton engineering subsidiary and worked as a project manager in fibre concrete and high performance materials. He later worked as a research and development director for Serge Ferrari and then as a department director for Eiffage Genie Civil.

Switzerland: Holcim has appointed Steffen Kindler to the role of chief financial officer (CFO), effective from 1 May 2023. Kindler joins the cement producer from Nestlé Deutschland, where he is currently CFO, having held various key business roles in Europe and North America throughout his 25-year career at Nestlé. These included roles of global responsibility for key corporate functions such as investor relations and mergers and acquisitions. Kindler holds a diploma in business administration and computer science from the University of Mannheim and attended Nestlé's leadership programme at London Business School.

Holcim CEO Jan Jenisch said “I am excited to welcome Steffen Kindler to the team. With his vast financial expertise and geographic experience, I am confident he will fit in well with Holcim’s performance-driven culture. Steffen is an ideal partner to contribute to our continued success as we become the global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions, with a focus on superior value creation for all our stakeholders.”

Current CFO Géraldine Picaud will oversee the completion of the group’s full-year 2022 results and conduct a thorough handover, before continuing her career outside of the company.

Jenisch said “I personally thank Géraldine for her commitment and contributions to Holcim over the past five years. The solid foundations you see today – especially Holcim’s strong balance sheet, solid credit ratings and integration of sustainable finance – are all testimony to her leadership. I wish her much continued success in her future endeavors."

Chile: UNACEM Chile and its ready-mix concrete partner UNICON Chile are set to acquire aggregates company Constructora de Obras y Viales Limitada (Conovia). Peru-based UNACEM Group concluded an agreement to buy Conovia's parent companies Inversiones Befeld Limitada and Inversiones Majas Limitada for US$3.7m on 21 November 2021. Gestión News has reported that Conovia has 180,000t/yr of aggregates production capacity in Valparaíso Region. At present, UNACEM Chile has 600,000t/yr in cement grinding capacity, while UNICON Chile has 1.2Mm³/yr in ready-mix concrete capacity.

UNACEM Group aims to grow its Chilean cement market share to 10 - 15% in 2025, from 8% during 2021. The market is reportedly valued at US$350m/yr.

US: Cemex USA and RTI International have secured US$3.7m in funding from the US Department of Energy for their Balcones cement plant amine technology carbon capture study. The plant in New Braunfels, Texas, will trial RTI International's non-aqueous solvent (NAS) system, licensed by energy and technology company SLB. Resources News has reported that the system will have a CO₂ capture capacity of 670,000t/yr. RTI International's principal project investigator Vijay Gupta said that NAS capture has a 30 - 40% lower energy penalty than preceding solvent-based technologies.

Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro said "We remain committed to exploring technologies that can help us meet our targets as we build a more sustainable future. We are striving to cut emissions across all our operations, and this study with RTI International is one of the many steps Cemex is taking to achieve our objectives."

Türkiye: Adocim says that it has successfully commissioned a new four-silo cement terminal at the Port of Samsun, Samsun Province. The producer says that the terminal has a storage capacity of 45,000t. The facility will serve the producer's Portland limestone cement (PLC) export operations to countries including the US.

Parent company Titan Cement Group said "This new investment will enable us to further increase our sales of lower carbon cement, contributing to our group’s Net Zero goal towards a greener and more sustainable future."

Türkiye: OYAK Cement has ordered a 5000t/day Pendulum Cooler from Germany-based IKN for its integrated plant at Ünye. The contract was signed at the 16th TurkÇimento Technical Seminar that was held in Antalya in late October 2022. No price for the order has been disclosed.

China: China Resources Cement subsidiary Shangsi Cement has successfully commissioned its new 5Mt/yr Shangsi aggregates site in Guangxi Province. The cement company developed the site in collaboration with CNBM Design and Research Institute, beginning in February 2022.

CNBM Design and Research Institute general manager Xie Xiaoning that both parties could take this project as an opportunity to further cooperate in-depth in fields such as new building materials, waste co-processing and automation, so as to help China Resources Cement to achieve diversified development and extension along value chains.

China Resources Cement expects to exceed 30Mt/yr in 2022. Earlier in the year, it won an auction for 1.5BnT of limestone reserves in Guangxi Province.

Mexico: Cemex has recorded a total of 50,000 users of its Cemex Go online sales platform since its launch in 2017. Exchanges via the platform account for 93% of the group's global cement customers and 85% of concrete customers. Cemex Go's net promoter score (NPS) customer satisfaction rating rose by 50% between November 2018 and November 2022.

Chief executive officer González Olivieri said "Cemex Go is an important enabler in our transition to a lower carbon industry by improving supply chain logistics, moving to a paperless industry and increasing efficiency throughout the construction sector."

India: Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer and its subsidiary Gebr. Pfeiffer (India) say they have received a follow-up order from Ultratech Cement for additional mills for new clinker production lines at its Kotputli plant in Madhya Pradesh and its Maihar plant in Rajasthan.

At the Kotputli plant it is planning to supply a MVR 5000 R-4 type mill to grind raw material. This mill can grind approximately 740t/hr to a product fineness of 1.0 % R 212µm with a 4800kW drive. At the Maihar plant a MVR 6000 R-6 type mill will also be supplied to grind raw material. In addition, several MPS 3550 BK type mills will be provided to grind fuel. These mills can grind approximately 45t/hr of pet coke, 90t/hr of coal, or any blend of the two materials. These are equipped with a 1300kW gearbox.

The plant design and the entire customer support will be handled by Gebr. Pfeiffer (India). The core components, such as gearboxes, grinding bowls, the grinding roller suspension system and the grinding rollers, will be supplied from Europe by Gebr. Pfeiffer. The remaining components, such as the foundation parts, the housings, the classifiers and most of the plant components will be provided by Gebr. Pfeiffer (India).