Spain: Cementos Alfa, part of Cementos Portland Valderrivas Group, has received permission from the Ministry of Environment to expand its quarry. The approval also allows the cement producer to expand the area of its quarry, according to the El Diario Montañés newspaper. The quarry currently produces 0.6Mt/yr of limestone and marl that are used for clinker production at the neighbouring plant.

Paraguay: Industria Nacional del Cemento’s (INC) Vallemi cement plant has suffered damage to its equipment due to problems with the local electricity supply from state energy company ANDE. Issues including low voltage that damaged the main electric motor of the plant’s cement mill and other equipment at the site, according to the ABC newspaper. Consequently, cement is not being despatched from the Vallemi plant. Normal production is expected to resume in mid-April 2018. INC’s Villeta cement grinding plant has increased its dispatches to compensate increasing its deliveries to 80,000bags/day of cement from its normal level of 50,000bags/day.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton has publicly dismissed media speculation about its alleged plans to purchase Barro Group. The building materials producer said that whilst it had proposed transaction plans to Barro at ‘various times’ no agreement has been reached on any such deal.
Analysts at the investment bank Citi said that Adelaide Brighton’s management were keen to buy the US$384m cement business owned by its major shareholder, the Barro Group, according to the Australian newspaper. However, the analysts said they believed the complex shareholding structure could pose problems.

Germany: Beumer Group has added the option of an ultrasonic sealing unit to its Fillpac R rotary packer filling system. The add-on is intended to improve the appearance of the bags filled with the packing machine. Once bags are filled they are sealed with ultrasound to keep the bags clean and company. This method of sealing also helps ensures that material is not spilled or contaminated during transport by truck.