SAMI Bitumen Technologies’ parent company, COLAS, has a simple but instrumental principle. ‘One COLAS Bitumen’ unites the company’s subsidiaries around the world, helping to improve quality, sustainability and innovation globally.

Having a global and dominant industry footprint is a big responsibility. It’s also one that COLAS takes seriously, aiming to ensure that it leaves a positive legacy for the sector, on top of providing high-quality and sustainable bitumen supply and products.

COLAS and its subsidiaries operate in more than 50 countries across five continents, making it one of, if not the, largest providers in the world of materials and services for the development of transport infrastructure.

One important aspect to achieving this mission is global coordination.

‘One COLAS Bitumen’ (OCB), an initiative started in 2018 by COLAS, aims to treat bitumen not just as a material used in road construction, but as a technical product requiring sourcing, transport, storage, transformation, and sales. OCB brings together COLAS’ bitumen entities worldwide, including in Canada, the United States, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, to leverage knowledge, best practices and coordinate resources.

OCB annually supports the management of more than five million tonnes of bitumen globally.

Thierry Defrene, Bitumen Performance Director at COLAS says OCB helps to unite each of COLAS’ subsidiaries, even if they’re separated by culture and language.

“This is the very reason why we created the OCBs, because every business is very focused on responding locally to their own issues and matters,” he says. “The idea of OCB is to bring this to a next stage, to have exchanges around any opportunity or challenge that we might be facing.

“Once you’re able to pull and exchange from a global system, there’s always something that has been done somewhere else that can be transferred or adapted. Geographies, climate conditions, specifications, clients, and expectations are always different in different parts of the world. But the knowledge, expertise and problem solving in many ways is universal.”

Access to a global network of specialist bitumen businesses further supports the sharing and adaptation of solutions, many of which may be developed in differing regions.

This consolidation and exchange of expertise have already led to improvements and innovation in plant design, energy conservation, procurement, and product development.

Just one example is the success of the SAMIfalt EME (high modulus asphalt) binder across COLAS’ Australian subsidiary, SAMI Bitumen Technologies. Initially developed in France, this technology has since been transferred and adapted to local conditions.

Another is COLAS’ continued mission to not only increase the sustainability of its products, but also of its transport and logistical methodologies. This includes fully evaluating the company’s transport process.

Driven by OCB, the company has invested in and embraced ‘green’ bitumen vessels powered by LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), significantly reducing carbon emissions during product transport. Such actions have also earned global recognition, with COLAS being awarded Singapore’s Green Vessel of the Year award.