The grand opening of the new Houston "Terminal East" is scheduled for the 18th of October.
The new terminal was constructed by Houston Cement Company, a joint venture of Alamo Cement Company, Ash Grove Cement and Texas Lehigh Cement Company.
Terminal East, one of the largest such facilities in the nation, sits on 88 acres.
A 640’ waterfront dock supports a rail-mounted “Siwertell” ship unloader by BMH Marine: with a rated capacity of 1,500 m/t per hour of free digging, this is the largest cement unloader ever built by the Swedish company.
HCC terminal East meets all United States Coast Guard and Homeland Security measures by restricting access to the dock area by means of guarded check points, security fencing and illumination.

Buzzi Unicem will be in Bologna from the 25th to the 29th of October 2006 to attend the 42nd edition of SAIE, International building technology exhibition. The show will give building professionals the opportunity to get to know and compare the proposals of market leading companies and has now become the most renowned specialized trade fair in Italy.

SAIE 2006's main topic will be related to tunnelling works.
Buzzi Unicem will take part once again in this trade fair, which will be the perfect showcase for its underground works range of products: the full range of ECO binders and mortars specially formulated for sprayed concrete and anchorage mortars, SOLIDUR® ready-to-use premixes ideal for impermeable diaphragm walls and the whole range of MIKRODUR® products formulated for injections and consolidations.

Buzzi Unicem will take part to the 16th edition of GEOFLUID which will be held in Piacenza from the 4th to the 7th of October 2006 at the Centro Espositivo di Piacenza Expo.
GEOFLUID is an international exhibition dedicated to the drilling sector and underground construction, both in the research of underground fluids and in other geological, geophysical and geotechnical applications.
Just like the past edition GEOFLUID will host: 
- GEOTECH dedicated to Geotechnical Surveying, Deep Foundations and Directional Drilling "No-Dig" Rigs and Equipment;
- GEOCONTROL a showcase for Instrumentation and Equipment for Environmental Analysis, Monitoring and Land Reclamation;
- GEOTUNNEL an exhibition dedicated to Tunnelling Machines, Equipment and Instrumentation.

Buzzi Unicem will take part once again in this trade fair showcasing its underground works range of products: the full range of ECO binders and mortars specially formulated for sprayed concrete and anchorage mortars, SOLIDUR®  premixes ideal for impermeable diaphragm walls and the whole range of MIKRODUR®  products formulated for injections and consolidations.

PCA Portland Cement Association presented nine facilities with the 2005 PCA Safety Innovation Awards at an award luncheon at the 48th Annual Cement Industry Technical Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on April 12. The Innovation in Safety Awards honor innovative safety practices, programs and projects; communicate these ideas to members of the cement industry; and raise the profile and importance of safety programs both within and outside of the industry.
Winners are featured in the current issue of Cement Americas magazine, which cosponsored the awards.
Members of PCA’s Occupational Health and Safety Committee, Board of Directors, and a representative of Mines Safety and Health Administration judged 68 entries this year. The 2005 winners were:

Alamo Cement Company - San Antonio, TX
Ash Grove Cement Company - Inkom, ID
Ash Grove Cement Company - Clancy, MT
Ash Grove Cement Company - Durkee, OR
Buzzi Unicem USA Inc. - Greencastle, IN
Buzzi Unicem USA Inc. - Stockertown, PA
GCC of America Inc. - Rapid City, SD
GCC of America Inc. - Tijeras, NM
Illinois Cement Company - LaSalle, IL

On Tuesday the 27th of June 2006 at the Centro Congressi Frentani in Rome, OICE - Association of Italian engineering, architectural and technical economic consulting organizations, will hold a conference titled "Gli effetti delle norme tecniche per le costruzioni - primo check up degli utilizzatori sul nuovo Testo Unico" (Feedback on the new construction code - test-users check up).

Published on the 23rd of September 2005 on the State Official Journal, the new construction code establishes, in an unique guideline, the different levels of safety and quality performance of the various construction materials.
The debate is an opportunity to share comments on the new technical norms highlighting possible critical elements. Moreover, during the open debate, some crucial issues and the operational guidelines related to the new norms will be discussed, with the aim of refining the new codes before coming into force.

Our Unical officer, Andrea Bolondi, Head of Quality and Large Projects Department, will take part to the debate presenting the "Concrete Project", a venture started in collaboration with ATECAP (Italian Technical Economical Premixed Concrete Association) and sponsored by AITEC (Italian Technical Economical Cement Association), ASSIAD (Italian Association of Addmixtures and Concrete Manufacturers) and SISMIC (Italian Seismic Steels for reinforced cement Manufacturers Association).

Concrete Project is about sending on sites a selected team of top Italian engineers who will meet and help building professionals writing new tenders, in order to make them match the reinforced cement new applications with the aim of pursuing and applying the new technical construction code to upcoming projects.

On the 22nd of June 2006 more than 100 people have attended "Le cose cambiano le cose – Percorsi d’innovazione tra design e industria" (What things might become - Design innovative paths for the industry), a one day workshop organised by LAB Design Touch in collaboration with Centro PATLIB della Camera di Commercio di Torino, a Patent Office affiliated body.
Alessandro Barberis, President of Turin Chamber of Commerce, has welcomed the guests holding an opening speech, after which, Cesare Catena and Maurizio Bazzano, LAB Design Touch co founders, under the supervision of director Daniele Pianciola, have presented the projects materiaprima® and novaform®.
The companies involved with materiaprima® and novaform®, Buzzi Unicem, Ferrino, Stabilimenti Tessili Ozella and Industria Materie Plastiche Gallina, have shared their experience and enthusiasm towards the projects hoping for a greater involvement of more and more Piedmont companies.

materiaprima® is a research based project aimed at creating new designs using industrial material, highlighting its features and technical characteristics.

novaform®, on the other hand, is a project that aims to create new design objects giving new meaning and usage to already existing products.

Turin will be 2008 Design Capital and “Le cose cambiano le cose – Percorsi d’innovazione tra design e industria” is an event that intends to provide information on the innovative applications that strategic design could bring to companies operating in Piedmont.

LAB Design Touch, is a design lab created by a Turin based advertising agency Marcopolo srl and supported by DeSide Studio sas and Graphic Center srl, corporate communication companies also based in Turin.

LAB Design Touch's main mission is to bring new design ideas into those industrial fields where little investment is made in this direction. LAB Design Touch is working towards creating new shapes and products mixing design with industrial products that come from different fields.

More than 800 representatives from over 50 countries have attended the second fib (Fédération Internationale du Béton) international congress held in Naples at the Centro Congressi “Mostra d’Oltremare” from the 5th to the 8th of June 2006.
The main topic of the congress was the technical, economical, aesthetical and environmental performance of concrete construction and many professionals designers and company representatives have debated about issues such as design, safety, environmental sustainability and new products.
The congress has been a great showcase for Buzzi Unicem, the only construction industry representative attending the event, which has presented Unical’s special concrete Aresbeton, SCC and Steelbeton, the whole sprayed concrete Ecospritz line of products, SOLIDUR®, mixes with permeability and environmentally safe features, and Dyckerhoff’s MIKRODUR®, micro fine cement mostly used for its sealing and strengthening features.

On Tuesday the 6th, our officers Marco Borroni and Roberto Bogliolo have delivered two separate speeches: the former

“Self Compacting Concrete for high performance structures” on self compacting concrete. During the conference, Mr Borroni has presented a view on ongoing and finished projects.

The latter, “Environmental Product Declaration for concrete”, dealt with the product environmental impacts throughout its lifecycle, from “cradle to grave”.

Buzzi Unicem took part, as a partner, to the international Life INTEND project, in order to define an EPD guideline for concrete and cement. As a part of a pilot scheme, Italy and Sweden have adopted these rules, which have been applied to the Santena plant for the Italian part of the project. The project saw the application of PCR (Product Category Rules) and LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and was completed by EDP, certified by ICMQ and with the Swedish Environmental Management Council approval.

Buzzi Unicem reached the best sustainability performance in Italy for the Construction industry, with a score comparable to the best practice of the European companies and above the European average, based on the components of the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index. This is what it appears from the presentation conference of the "Benchmarking study about sustainability in the Italian companies" held in Milan last 24 January.
It is four years that SAM Group, Sustainable Asset Management, publishes this benchmarking study, in collaboration with Osif (Observatory on Sustainability of the Company and Finance) together with Goodwill, Forum of the Third Sector and Humanity Onlus (University Luiss Guido Carli). The global analysis is composed of companies from 11 different sectors, with a minimum number of 5 companies per each sector.
From the study it results that the Italian companies stand out for a good management of the environmental subjects, an appropriate customer care and right standards for suppliers. Even those companies, among which ours, that are not included in the 2,500 companies with higher capitalization of the Dow Jones Global Index (DJGI), took part in the analysis and therefore, on voluntary base and without any short term financial target, gave all the info required by the questionnaire, showing a strong management and prosecution will of a sustainable business.
A further confirmation of our sustainable course is the achievement, November 21st 2005, of the Environmental Certification in compliance with the norm UNI EN ISO 14001:2004 for the plant and the quarries of Siniscola (NU). This production site in Sardinia is now to be numbered among several other works already certified under the above mentioned norm.