Germany: Italy-based Buzzi Unicem subsidiary Dyckerhoff has received Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) Gold certification for all seven of its German cement plants. All 10 of its concrete plants also received Gold certification. The company’s seven cement plants previously received Silver certification from the CSC in 2018. It said that it was especially pleased with its latest achievement giving the more rigorous checks under the certification body’s updated 2.1 version.

India: Larsen & Toubro has won a contract for the construction of a 3.5Mt/yr-capacity integrated cement plant at Nimbahera in Rajasthan. The Press Trust of India newspaper has reported that the supplier classed the order’s value as ‘significant,’ meaning between US$134m and US$336m.

Germany: HeidelbergCement’s consolidated net sales grew by 1% year-year to Euro3.96bn in the first quarter of 2021 from Euro3.93bn in the first quarter of 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 23% to Euro538m from Euro436m. The group said that the preliminary results are ‘significantly’ above market expectations.

Spain: Domestic cement consumption was 3.38Mt in the first quarter of 2021, up by 8% year-on-year from 3.12Mt in 2020. The Spanish Cement Industry Association (Oficemen) partly attributed the increase to export growth, to 665,000t in March 2021, up by 18% from March 2020 levels.

President Víctor Brosa said, ‘A stable year is expected in 2021 compared to 2020 despite the uncertainty surrounding the arrival of funds to reactivate the economy and the evolution of the pandemic."