Displaying items by tag: Ash Grove

US: Staff members from Ash Grove Cement, Argos USA and Lehigh Hanson have won awards at the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) 2018 John P Gleason, Jr Leadership Awards. The awards recognise PCA members who have exhibited leadership in advancing industry programs and initiatives. The scheme is named after John ’Jay’ Gleason who served as PCA president from 1986 until his retirement in 2007.

Steve Minshall, Corporate Director, Safety and Health at Ash Grove Cement won the Business Continuity award. He has served on the PCA Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Committee for two decades, where the PCA say he has proven to be a strong safety leader in implementing many programs and initiatives to reduce workplace injuries. He has led efforts to better partnership with regulatory agencies in pursuit of the common goal of safety. Finalists in this category were Brett Lindsay, Environmental & Energy Manager at Salt River Materials Group, and Steve Wilcox, Cement Technical Director at Argos USA.

Lori Tiefenthaler, Senior Director of Marketing at Lehigh Hanson won the Market Development award. As chair of the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) in 2017, Tiefenthaler led efforts to better align the missions of allied cement and concrete associations, including an effort to launch PavementDesigner.org, which is a joint project between PCA, ACPA and National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. She has served on the executive board for the National Concrete Consortium, through which she has helped improve connections and outcomes for the cement and concrete industries with federal and state departments of transportation and academia. Finalists in this category were Bill Asselstine, Vice President Sustainability at St. Marys Cement/VCNA, and David Gray, Market Manager at GCC of America.

Gina Lotito, Vice President, Energy & Environmental, GCC of America won the Young Leaders award. She is an active member of the PCA Environment & Energy Committee, where she has been chair and vice chair of the Sustainable Manufacturing Subcommittee, and served on the Sustainable Development Committee. She has proven a leader in promoting the use of clean alternative fuels for cement production, and in federal advocacy efforts to lower regulatory barriers for using such fuels under the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials Rule. Finalists in this category were Ed Griffith, Vice President Sales & Marketing, US at St. Marys Cement/VCNA and Adam Posly, Production Manager at LafargeHolcim US.

US: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a final order settling changes for Ireland’s CRH acquisition of Ash Grove Cement following a period for public comment. The FTC issued its consent for the transaction in June 2018 on the condition that CRH sell the Three Forks cement plant in Montana to Mexico’s Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC).

Also under the settlement, because the CRH cement plant in Montana currently sells a significant amount of cement into Canada through two CRH terminals in Alberta, GCC will have the option to use those terminals for three years. CRH also has agreed to purchase, at GCC’s option, cement produced at the plant for distribution in Canada for up to three years. The FTC also forced CRH to sell other assets in Montana, Nebraska and Kansas.

US: CRH has completed the sale of cement and ready-mix assets to Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) following its acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. Ireland's biggest company sold the Trident cement plant in Montana to GCC for US$107.5m.

The move comes less than a month after CRH received regulatory approval from the US Federal Trade Commission to acquire cement manufacturer Ash Grove Cement for US$3.5bn in a deal first announced in September 2017.

As part of the transaction with GCC, CRH acquired most of the ready-mix plants and transportation assets belonging to GCC in Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas for US$118.5m. GCC will continue to own and operate four ready-mix plants in the Fort Smith, Arkansas area and own an office building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which it will lease to CRH.
The purchase and sale amounts have been paid in full but are subject to final inventory valuation adjustments, which are expected to be completed within 90 days.

US: Ireland’s CRH has completed its acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. It agreed to buy Ash Grove Cement in mid-2017 for US$3.5bn. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its consent for the transaction on the condition that CRH sell the Three Forks cement plant in Montana. It also forced CRH to sell other assets in Montana, Nebraska and Kansas.

US: The Federal Trade Commission has forced CRH to sell the Three Forks cement plant in Montana as part of its proposed acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. The plant and its quarry will be sold to Mexico’s Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Also under the settlement, because the CRH cement plant in Montana currently sells a significant amount of cement into Canada through two CRH terminals in Alberta, GCC will have the option to use those terminals for three years. CRH also has agreed to purchase, at GCC’s option, cement produced at the plant for distribution in Canada for up to three years.

The commissions ruled that the acquisition would harm competition in Montana, Nebraska and Kansas. Other divestments the Irish building materials company has agreed to include selling two sand-and-gravel plants, one sand-and-gravel pit, three limestone quarries and two hot-mix asphalt plants.

Following the agreed divestments, the FTC has issued its consent for CRH’s proposed acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. No further regulatory approvals are now outstanding for the transaction. The acquisition is expected to complete in June 2018. Ireland’s CRH agreed to buy Ash Grove Cement for US$3.5bn in mid-2017.

US: Cadence Environmental Energy has promoted Ted T Reese to Executive Vice President. Cadence provides technology for waste fuel recycling and emission reduction technology to the cement industry and is the exclusive supplier of waste-derived fuels for Ash Grove Cement. As part of the company’s succession plan founder Ted J Reese plans to hand over the presidency to Ted T Reese in 2019.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Safety Innovation Awards. The awards recognise creative safety-enhancing projects in the cement industry. Winners were determined by a panel of judges that evaluated submissions from across the country for milling/grinding, distribution, pyroprocessing and general facility.

Cemex USA’s Miami plant Florida won the milling/grinding category with its new process to load ball mills. The site developed a new mill loading process that uses a small hopper for grinding media, and an incline transport system with buckets to convey the grinding media directly to the mill. This new system eliminates the interaction between the employee and the machine, reduces the number of people needed to load the mill from five to two, and eliminates the need for employees to stand on top of the mill. This new system also improves mill loading rates from seven drums/hr to 30 drums/hr.

Cemex USA’s Houston operations in Texas won the pyroprocessing category for it use of drones for hazardous inspections. It has implemented a system for using protected air drones to inspect enclosed and confined spaces. Visual inspections of enclosed areas (preheater towers, tanks, silos, process ducts, etc) normally require intrusive equipment, long delays for system cooling, and placement of employees on scaffolding in confined spaces. These drones utilise an outer protective cage to minimize the risk of breakage due to impact. The drone program has eliminated the risk of putting staff in confined spaces, reduced the cost of scaffolding, and reduced the overall time for inspections.

LafargeHolcim US’ Corporate Program in Chicago won the distribution category for its X-Factor barge cover. It has developed a process for barge cover removal that reduces the risk of falls from employees stepping on to the barge. The X-Factor barge cover, developed over the last three years with a contractor, uses the latest technology and a no-touch design to allow a crane operator to perform all functions associated with barge lid handling without additional human assistance. Barge workers will no longer be required to step onto the barge to remove or replace barge covers, eliminating a potential fall risk.

Ash Grove Cement’s Louisville plant in Nebraska won the general facility category for its use of magnets as duct hole patches. Ash Grove has developed a hole-patch technique using magnets. Magnetic patches are quick, simple, and effective at preventing or limiting the release of materials from holes created in ducts caused by abrasion, leading to a cleaner plant, reduced slip, trip and fall risks, and fewer related Mine Safety and Health Administration housekeeping citations.

Cemex USA’s Brooksville in Florida also won the general facility category for its filters moved to ground level project. It redesigned the blower housings to move the filter from the top of the blower housings to an easily accessible location at ground level. The redesigned blower housing eliminates the need for employees to climb up and down a ladder, reducing overexertion and fall hazard.

Well it doesn’t normally happen like this. In late September 2017 Ash Grove Cement announced that it was set to be bought by Ireland’s CRH. The words it used were a ‘definitive merger agreement.’ Then suddenly this week on 5 October 2017 Ash Grove said that it had received a higher offer from an unnamed third party and that it was extending its so-called ‘window shop period.’ So much for definitive! The following day Reuters revealed that the new bid was from Summit Materials.

The on-going board machinations at LafargeHolcim and the PPC-AfriSam merger saga in South Africa show that the cement industry has its moments of boardroom high drama. Indeed, both of these long-rumbling stories have had murmurs this week with the early departure of LafargeHolcim’s finance director Ron Wirahadiraksa after less than two years and Dangote Cement’s decision to exit the ring from the PPC bidding. However, it’s rare that cement companies are publicly announced as sold and then get gazumped instead.

The Ash Grove debacle also carries a personal dimension. Ash Grove chairman Charlie Sunderland initially described CRH as his company’s biggest customer and one with a close relationship to the firm. Yet a US$300m higher bid suggests how much those ‘kind’ words were actually worth. To add insult to injury the chief executive officer (CEO) of Summit Materials, Tom Hill, used to work for CRH. This no doubt gave him an idea of how the management of CRH thinks. CRH’s public response so far has been that it has noted the extended shareholder approval period at Ash Grove.

At first glimpse Summit Materials and CRH have a similar cement production base in the US. Both companies operate two integrated plants in the country. Summit Materials runs plants at Hannibal, Missouri and Davenport, Iowa. CRH runs plants at Sumterville, Florida and Trident, Montana. Summit then has 10 cement terminals along the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana compared to CRH US’ five cement terminals in Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio, Dundee, Michigan, Buffalo, New York and Duluth, Minnesota.

Yet, CRH also has two plants in Canada. Then the sheer scale of CRH’s other operations in North America simply dwarfs Summit’s. CRH Americas reported sales of US$16.7bn in 2016, more than 10 times higher than the US$1.6bn that Summit Materials declared. Both companies cover aggregates, asphalt, readymix concrete and cement but CRH is by far the larger of the two. So much so in fact that Summit Materials might potentially be taking on a serious amount of debt to finance the Ash Grove sale. As such any blip to the US cement market over the next few years could have serious repercussions to an overleveraged Summit Materials.

On face value the possible engagement with Summit Materials might appear to show that there is a lack of trust between CRH and Ash Grove. However, this cannot be inferred. As its shares are traded over the counter, Ash Grove’s shareholders have allowed a two-week shop window to enable other companies to counter-offer. This is to ensure that they get the best possible value. Talking to Summit is part of this process and may, or may not, mean that the last remaining US-owned cement producer stays based in the US after all.

The last week marked a step change to the US industry with the news that Ireland’s CRH has agreed to buy Ash Grove Cement. The latter is the largest remaining cement producer still owned by an American company. Its history dates back 135 years to its founding in 1882, with links to the Sunderland family for over a century. Following the acquisition, each of the top five cement producing firms in the US will be operated by multinational corporations based in foreign countries.

Although this scenario is not new to many other countries around the world, it is rare for a nation with a cement industry of this scale. The US is the third biggest cement producer worldwide. Out of the top ten cement producing nations Global Cement Magazine identified in its Top 100 Report 2017 feature in December 2016 only Egypt doesn’t have a local company to match the multinationals. China has China National Building Material (CNBM), for example and India has UltraTech cement and so on and so forth.

The actual sale covers Ash Grove Cement’s eight cement plants and 23 cement terminals, as well as its ready mix concrete and aggregate businesses, for US$3.5bn. Altogether its cement plants have a production capacity of 9.5Mt/yr and this really puts into contrast the Cementir Italia deal last week. HeidelbergCement has agreed to buy that company for around Euro57/t. CRH is buying Ash Grove Cement for US$368/t. That’s more that five times as much!

To be fair they are very different markets, with Italy’s cement sector consolidating near the bottom of a business cycle and the US growing with some promise. For comparison with other recent US acquisitions, CRH is offering to pay about the same as Summit Materials did to Lafarge for a cement plant and seven terminals in mid-2015. Other than that a few of the more recent transactions have been between US$200 – 300/t. The gradual price inflation for cement production capacity indicates that there is confidence in the US cement market.

In terms of CRH’s enhanced presence in North America following the completion of the deal, it currently operates two cement plants in the US: the American Cement Sumterville plant in Florida, a joint venture with Elementia, and the Trident plant in Montana. The CRH US division also runs five terminals in the Midwest and Northeast. This compliments Ash Grove Cement’s presence in the West, Midwest and South. Throw in CRH’s Canadian cement plants in Ontario and Quebec and CRH has the makings of a seriously strong cement business in North America. The only obvious impediment could be the close proximity of the CRH Trident plant and the Ash Grove Cement Montana City plant. Both are in Montana within 115km of each other and they are the only integrated plants in the state. A Federal Trade Commission arranged divestment in this location seems likely.

Ash Grove Cement’s chairman Charlie Sunderland, described CRH as his company’s biggest customer when the acquisition was announced. Buying Ash Grove Cement fills in one more piece in CRH’s construction materials puzzle in North America. Its American divisions have generated more than half of its revenue since at least 2014 dominating asphalt, aggregate and ready mix concrete markets. Yet it has lacked a cement market presence to match this. This changes when the deal with Ash Grove Cement completes.

US: Ash Grove Cement has announced that its Chief Operating Officer J Randall Vance has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer. Charles Sunderland, who has held both the chairman and CEO titles, will remain as chairman of the Overland Park-based company.

Vance joined Ash Grove in 2011 as Chief Financial Officer, according to a release. In 2014, he was named as president and COO, filling a position that had been vacant since the death of Charles Wiedenhoft in 2010.