Customer-focused OEM’s offer optimism

Walking around the 427 Hillhead 2014 exhibition at the 7235 Lafarge Tarmac quarry in Buxton, in the heart of the UK’s Peak District, I was struck by the amount of new equipment and technology available for the quarrying and heavy construction sector.

As well as offering plenty to illustrate how OEMs had listened to their customers’ repeated calls for models offering more working efficiencies, higher productivity and longer uptime, exhibitors and visitors at the world’s biggest working quarry-based show were full of optimism about the quarrying sector overall; far more so, it felt, than when I was at the previous event in 2012.

Some of this optimism could be considered UK-centric, with the British economy performing better than many in the Eurozone, and aggregate demand set to increase thanks to the Government’s €125.8 billion [£100 billion] investment in new infrastructure from 2015-2020. New tax incentives for SME quarry sector firms have also helped stimulate fleet investment.

However, there is also some optimism, and steely resolve, that could lead to growth across Europe as a whole. While there was doubt whether 3739 Samoter (and co-located Asphaltica) would be staged in Verona in May 2014 due to the challenging Italian domestic sales market, the show went ahead and attracted strong visitor numbers.

And 465 Steinexpo, being staged in Nieder-Ofleiden, central Germany during early September could provide the ideal platform to kick-start lasting growth in quarry and heavy construction equipment demand in Europe and further afield.

In my former role as Assistant Editor of World Highways, Aggregates Business Europe’s fellow Route One Publishing magazine, I worked on stories covering huge road and bridge building projects in Eastern Europe, all requiring thousands of tonnes of aggregate-based materials. Much of the aggregates demand is fuelled by governments: such as that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spending billions of euros on new transport and building infrastructure, in Russia’s case for the World Cup in 2018 and this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi. Other big infrastructure investors that have and will continue to create aggregates sector business opportunities include Poland and the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Furthermore, the much publicised and imminent €30 billion 680 Holcim-725 Lafarge merger will create commercial opportunities for cement producers, as the sector giants sell off billions of euros’ worth of assets in order to attain their marriage, which will create the world’s biggest cement group, given the greenlight by industry authorities.

To end my first column as Aggregates Business Europe-Aggregates Business International Editor, I’d very much like to thank my predecessor, Patrick Smith, who was such a personable, knowledgeable and dedicated Editor (of Aggregates Business Europe and Aggregates Business International). I will be drawing on his industry insight and appreciating his hard work in his new role as Executive Editor as we, and the rest of the Route One Publishing team, strive to continue making both magazines THE must-reads for everyone in quarrying, recycling and heavy construction.