Global Concrete News

Poland: Switzerland-based Holcim has concluded an agreement to acquire ready-mix concrete producer Ol-Trans. Ol-Trans operates five batching plants and is the market leader in Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot. Holcim says that its new customers in the region will benefit from access to its CO₂-saving products, including Agila Fibro self-compacting concrete, which can reduce steel reinforcement usage in construction by up to 50%.

Holcim’s Europe, Middle East and Africa regional head Miljan Gutovic said “With this acquisition we will further expand the footprint of ECOPact green concrete, the first and most comprehensive sustainable concrete range in Poland.”

Germany: Sweden-based Thomas Concrete Group has acquired a five-plant Rhineland-Palatinate-based concrete producer. The acquisition brings Thomas Concrete Group’s German concrete capacity to 1Mm²/yr across six federal states, 2% of domestic capacity. Germany has 1900 concrete plants in total.

South Korea: SK Group subsidiary SK Ecoplant has partnered with CMD Group to launch pilot production of building materials made using up to 60% recycled bottom ash from waste incinerators. The partners say that an exothermic reaction in the presence of non-sintered inorganic binders and expansion-reducing reactants increases the compressive strength of the end product to match that of concrete containing ordinary Portland cement (OPC).

AJU News has reported that South Korean waste incinerators produced 2.16Mt of bottom ash from 9.12Mt of waste in 2020.

Romania: Holcim Romania has announced its acquisition of independent ready-mix concrete market leader General Beton Romania. The latter operates eight batching plants with a total of 160 employees. Its markets include Arad, Bucharest, Constanta and Sibiu. Holcim Romania says that it plans to use the acquisition to grow its ECOPact green concrete’s footprint.

Europe, Middle East Africa regional head Miljan Gutovic said “General Beton provides an excellent addition to our strong and diversified ready-mix concrete operations. Over more than two decades, General Beton has been a long-standing Holcim partner as well as a growing and highly successful business. I am delighted to welcome them to the Holcim family.”

Spain: CRH’s Catalonian ready-mix concrete subsidiary Beton Catalan has partnered with Grapheno Smart Materials in order to implement the latter’s graphene technology in its high-performance concrete products.

Beton Catalan’s quality director Alberto Arenillas said that the company’s high-performance concrete products require ‘a significant amount of CEM I cement,’ He said “By introducing the graphene additive, the nominal amounts of this cement can be reduced or changed to cement with a lower carbon footprint, improving its performance.” The company will sell the graphene-enriched concrete under its BeGreen reduced-CO₂ products label.