economic value
“We’re delighted to have established a long-term partnership with Forth Ports. The development of the new construction terminal demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the long-lasting security of high-quality aggregate supplies into London and the South East.”
Mark Wood, regional managing director, materials south
In delivering economic value we not only ensure the long-term success of our business, employees and investors, we contribute to the success of our customers supporting them to build the homes, offices and essential infrastructure for our future.
highlights
multi-million pound hub development in Birmingham
Investment to Reduce Fossil Fuel
kiln chlorine bypass system for cement
Tibury2
UK’s largest construction materials terminal
2020 Performance
2020 presented every business with some momentous challenges. Our ability to deliver sustainable long-term value in a rapidly evolving environment demonstrates the strength and resilience of our business and employees. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic for the UK was severe, particularly in the second quarter of the year, and we also had to manage the uncertainty of Brexit. However, trading conditions and business performance improved through the second half of the year. The government's commitment to the construction sector was demonstrated through the 'Build Back Better, Greener' and levelling up agendas. Our operational network and our strong relationships with our key infrastructure partners puts us in a good position to continue to make the most of these opportunities going forward.
Despite the disruption caused by the pandemic we have continued to invest in our business and maintain our focused growth strategy with some key strategic sites opening for operation in 2020.
Birmingham asphalt
During the year we started work on the installation of the newest addition to our materials portfolio. Our site at Washwood Heath is our newest asphalt and aggregates depot being built just a few miles outside of Birmingham city centre. The plant will act as a materials hub to supply hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material to the West Midlands each year including our range of low carbon asphalts, such as ULTILOW warm mix asphalt, and our innovative rubberised asphalt. The plant will also be capable of adding up to 40 percent Recycled Asphalt Planings (RAP) to the mixes manufactured. The development will also include the construction of a new readymixed concrete plant. Concrete from this plant will be used for the construction of the HS2 rail project and support other existing batching plants in Birmingham. The plant will enable the efficient delivery of local infrastructure projects without increasing HGV movements on the local road network, lowering the whole life carbon footprint of customer projects as well as reducing our transport CO2.
New concrete batching plants
Tarmac has committed to the installation of 11 new concrete batching plants as part a major contract to supply readymixed concrete to a number of work packages as part of the UK High Speed 2 line (HS2). Throughout 2020, our National Commercial HS2 team have been working closely with the client and its supply chain partners on this exciting project.
Investing in rail infrastructure
The Scottish Government allocated £1.49 million to Tarmac’s Dunbar cement plant in a Freight Facilities Grant. The grant supports Tarmac’s drive to enhance its rail capabilities at the plant which provides cement products for construction projects across Scotland and further into England. It also helps us to deliver on our commitment to transporting as much product as possible on the rail network, reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality.
Tilbury 2
To help provide long term security of our aggregate supply into the south east of England, Tarmac have partnered with London’s fastest growing port, the Port of Tilbury, to create the UK’s largest construction materials aggregates terminal at Tilbury2. The new port development has been constructed on the north bank of the River Thames. The development of Tilbury2 is essential to provide long term security for aggregate supply to accommodate the growing demand from our customers to support vital housing and infrastructure in this region.
Tilbury 2 at a glance
• New aggregate processing and manufacturing facilities
• An asphalt and readymixed concrete plant
• Deep sea capacity for vessels up to 100,000 metric tonnes
• 22 nautical miles from the centre of London
• Key trading point for London and the south sast for a wide variety of cargoes
• £1 billion investment
• 152 acre site
• It will be a construction aggregates terminal for imported and sea-dredged aggregates
• Will handle up to 500,000 units
• New road and rail access
• There’ll be capacity for both bulk and container loading
• There will also be the ability to load barges for delivery into London’s construction market
New kiln chlorine bypass system at Tunstead Cement plant
2020 also saw the approval of a multi-million pound investment for a chlorine bypass at our Tunstead Cement plant in Derbyshire. The new process will allow the plant to use more cost-effective waste-derived fuels (WDF) and reduce our use of fossil fuels. The new system will consist of a kiln chlorine bypass (a duct that quenches the dust and removes chlorine from the kiln), bypass dust storage and handling system and additional waste-derived fuels (WDF) storage and feeding systems.
The installation of the chlorine bypass will make Tunstead Cement more competitive in the UK market, opening the way to use approximately 70 percent waste-derived fuels when it’s commissioned in 2022.
Tarmac is an operating company of CRH PLC and as such our 2020 financial performance and tax contributions are disclosed in the CRH PLC financial reports.
Looking forward
Having reached the end of 2020, we are about to launch the next phase of our sustainability strategy. Achieving real growth and creating lasting economic value is fundamental to our new strategy and will continue to be core to our overall purpose as a business. The structure of our new strategy has been revised to reflect this and our future actions relating to economic value created will be reported under the ‘Our purpose’ section in our new strategy.