Business lines and product groups

Our operations have been divided into four business lines in accordance with our most important products and product groups.

Cement
The cement business line manufactures and sells cement. The raw materials that are needed for producing cement (limestone and marl) are extracted from nearby quarries, where they are crushed before being transported to cement plants. The cement facilities then dry them, add aggregates and grind the mixture into raw meal. The cement clinker burned out of this is ground together with other additives into cement.

Cement is used as a binder for the production of concrete and mortar. Different types of cement with specific compositions are used in line with the application in question. Properties can also be varied through the use of additives.

HeidelbergCement manufactures and supplies all of the common types of cement: normal and special cements, binders for specific civil engineering applications, and cement for the construction chemicals industry. We also consider it important to continually improve the CO2 balance of the cement and concrete we sell. Lowering clinker proportions is the most effective way to minimise energy consumption and CO2 emissions and conserve natural resources. That’s why composite cement with lower clinker content is becoming an increasingly important product group for us.

Cement is generally transported in bulk on trucks, rail vehicles or ships and transferred in terminals between shipping segments. A small proportion of cement is shipped to customers in bags.

Aggregates
The aggregates business line handles the quarrying, refinement and sale of aggregates. Aggregates can be divided into two categories — crushed stone and grit, and sand and gravel. The stone material for crushed stone and grit is extracted in quarries by means of drilling and blasting, after which it is mechanically crushed to different particle sizes in crushers. The material for sand and gravel is found in currently existing or Ice Age river beds and is obtained through wet or dry mining processes. After being sieved and cleaned, the material is sorted in accordance with its particle size, after which it can be sold.

Whereas crushed stone and grit is used for road construction and maintenance, sand and gravel are used to make concrete. Aggregates are transported by truck, rail or ship. Because aggregates are used around the world but many of them cannot be found everywhere, they are also traded on international markets.

Concrete and asphalt
Our ready-mixed concrete and asphalt business activities are a key focus of our concrete-service-other business line.

Concrete is made up of a mixture of cement, gravel, sand and water. In this sense it is the finished product based on HeidelbergCement’s core activities: the production of cement and aggregates. Concrete is a very versatile building material. Its properties can be changed by altering the composition of the mixture used to make it, which means that it can fulfil the requirements posed by many different areas of application. Because it is a time-critical material, concrete is only transported across short distances directly to building sites, using ready-mix trucks. Asphalt is a mixture of aggregates and a binder that contains bitumen. Among other things, it is used to fortify road surfaces, as well as for hydraulic engineering applications. Asphalt is mixed in a hot state, transported to the location where it is needed at an optimal temperature and immediately processed on site.

Building products
Our building products include bricks and light blocks for use in residential construction. This business line also manufactures concrete pipes, precast concrete parts and concrete pavement tiles.