Canada: The Cement Association of Canada (CAC) and Rediscover Concrete have issued a joint declaration to the federal government in which they urge it to absorb the costs of state infrastructure projects and put construction ‘at the core of the COVID-19 recovery plan.’

CAC president and chief executive officer (CEO) Michael McSweeney said, “A successful economic recovery will require a commitment to use time-sensitive infrastructure spending. We have a very short construction season in Canada and municipalities have lost much of their financial capacity to fund important infrastructure projects this year. We need the federal government to help municipalities get local community infrastructure projects going to boost economic activity and public confidence.”

France: A car magazine chose Ciments Calcia’s 2Mt/yr Gargenville, île-de-France integrated cement plant as the backdrop for a photo shoot. The shoot featured models produced by Germany-based Audi, BMW, Daimler and Porsche. Ciments Calcia said that it was, “an opportunity for employees present to discover these exceptional machines. A good time was had by all.”

Germany: Beumer Group says it is supporting logistics start-up Sparrow Networks with its Beam spin-off company. Sparrow Networks consists of a spare parts pool of interconnected cement industry players. Customers can access the inventory on Sparrow Networks’ digital marketplace. Beam is a Berlin-based start-up company builder, supported by Beumer Group, that focuses on logistics and technical challenges.

Russia: Eurocement has announced the completion of Phase 2 of an upgrade project at its 2.4Mt/yr integrated Pikalevsky Cement plant. Following the modernisation of the grinding unit in the first phase of the upgrade in August 2019 at a cost of US$2.14m, Phase 2 work consisted of an expansion to ‘the assortment of high-quality products,’ including ‘large-scale construction and installation, reconstruction of air supply and aspiration systems and power supply and repair of existing buildings and structures’ at a total cost of US$2.86m. Eurocement completed the upgrade without any downtime to the existing lines.

Pikalevsky Cement director general Andrei Vashchilov said, “We have tested the new cement. The activity of cement at the age of 28 days increased by an average of  10MPa, which allows for cost-optimised concrete production. The modernisation also enabled the improvement and stabilisation of another important indicator - water separation.