Halyps Cement - Italcementi Group

Italcementi Group in Greece manufactures and distributes three main product lines: cement, aggregates and concrete.

Cement is made from a mixture of 80 percent limestone and 20 percent clay. These are crushed and ground to provide the "raw meal", a pale, flour-like powder. Heated to around 1450^o C (2642^o F) in rotating kilns, the "meal" undergoes complex chemical changes and is transformed into clinker. Fine-grinding the clinker together with a small quantity of gupsum produces cement. Adding other constituents at this stage produces cements for specialized uses.

Aggregates are made from sand and gravel extracted from quarries. Around 60 percent of aggregates are used in road construction. The remainder ise used to produce concrete.

Concrete is a mixture of cement, aggregates, water, admixtures and additions based on formulas that conform to predetermined strict technical specifications. Concrete is either mixed on the building site or delivered "ready-mixed" by specialized suppliers. The cement manufacturer's knowledge of chemical composition of the basic material provides additional quality assurance to the user.