Wagners score London win

CONSTRUCTION materials group Wagners has made headway in a global push to promote its uniquely ecofriendly concrete.

The Toowoomba-based firm announced this week that for the first time its “Earth Friendly Concrete’’ had been used on a London building site.

An anchor pile 900mm wide and 25m deep was installed at Nova East, which will be a 17-storey tower that is part of an ambitious mixed-use scheme backed by Landsec, the UK’s biggest commercial property development and investment firm.

Instead of greenhouse-gas intensive limestone, the Wagner’s concrete uses industrial waste by-products fly-ash from coal-fired power stations and slag from steel production. It’s held together based on a geoploymer technology developed by the company.

“With zero cement, Wagners

EFC geopolymer concrete can have a significant impact on the heavy construction materials industry and the environment at large,’’ CEO Cameron Coleman said.

Under development for the past decade, the innovative product is also being used in Germany, with the hope of wider deployment across Europe. Approvals are also under way in India.

But the Wagner’s concrete has hit bureaucratic hurdles in Australia and it has only been deployed in a few projects across Queensland.

The mixed fortunes come as Wagners suffered a 40 per cent plunge in net profit to $13.5 million in the last financial year as it acknowledged tough trading conditions and raised $37.4 million in additional funding.

The company also remains locked in a legal dispute with building giant Boral, its biggest cement buyer. The case is expected to go to trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court this year.

Wagners revealed last April that it would absorb a $10 million hit over a pricing dispute with Boral, which it alleged was trying to force down contract prices because it had been offered a better deal by an unnamed competitor.

All this has taken a toll on the share price, which peaked at nearly $4.70 last October and is now trading at about half that amount.

Despite the headwinds, Wagners has chalked up a few recent wins.

The company announced last month that it had won the $40 million contract to supply much of the concrete for Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project.

That came just weeks after it emerged Wagners had won a $35 million quarry operation and haulage contract for Adani’s Carmichael thermal coal project.

Earlier this month, Wagners won approval to double the size of its “composite fibre technologies’’ plant at Wellcamp.