Displaying items by tag: PCA

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has launched a new website to promote the US cement industry’s progress towards net zero. It’s always interesting to see the different approaches the various associations around the world take in promoting the sector especially in response to mainstream media coverage that has often taken a negative view of cement and concrete. As sustainability thinking has permeated into society the stereotype that cement production releases vast amounts of CO₂ for little gain has been a hard one to shake off. Readers can draw their own conclusions on how well the PCA site works by looking at cementprogress.com.

Make no mistake, the PCA’s new website is a marketing tool designed to bring out some of the points of its carbon zero roadmap to a wider audience. Yet it is refreshing to see a national association website attempting to tell the general public what progress the cement industry is making towards reducing its CO₂ emissions. Unfortunately, it then avoids giving out any data that presents an overview of how it’s all actually going. This may come with time though as the roadmap was only released in late 2021. One number that does stick out on the site is that the PCA uses the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon emissions data to calculate that the manufacture of cement accounts for 1.25% of total CO₂ emissions in the US. This is lower than the global figure of 7% that is often used from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo’s (CICERO) research. Both figures appear to be broadly correct based on the available data.

The real story here is to showcase the wide range of actions the PCA is taking as part of its roadmap. In the cement section, for example, the PCA is rightly able to demonstrate its recent work driving the transition to Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) production in the US. This then leads on to the usual beats of resilient construction, carbonation and a ’whole society’ approach to tackling the decarbonisation of the cement industry with suggestions that everybody from citizens to contractors to policy makers can do.

The wider context is that the big challenge facing cement advocacy groups today is that sustainability is a global issue but that such groups have generally been national or regional for most of their history. The national or regional cement associations have existed for decades serving the local needs of their members. This started to change in 1999 when the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) was created with its global approach to sustainability for the sector with its data gathering and technology roadmaps. In the 2010s global media attention started to focus on the large share of CO₂ emissions the cement industry was emitting as, coincidentally, China became the world’s largest cement producer. Then in the late 2010s the two global cement associations - the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and the World Cement Association (WCA) - emerged with the GCCA taking over what the CSI did previously.

One problem that the PCA and the other associations face is that decarbonising the cement and concrete sectors is hard to do, expensive and will take decades. Until, or if, carbon capture is suddenly conjured up at scale, all of this work is inherently seen as boring by much of the media compared to, say. young photogenic environmental activists supergluing themselves to roads. One way to fight back against this is to show progress font-and-centre and to try and take back control of the narrative. This appears to be what the PCA is trying out in a more direct fashion than usual. The risk though is that any action by an industry-backed lobbying group to show off the work it is doing will simply be labelled as greenwashing, whether it’s fair or not. Of course, some environmentalists indulge in their own reverse version of this (industry staining?) to make the powerful but simple argument about the necessity of cutting CO₂ emissions but without taking fully into account or underplaying the scale of the societal changes necessary to do so. Either way, the cement industry and its advocates have an uphill struggle on their hands in the years ahead. This may require fresh thinking about how to win over hearts and minds.

The March 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine includes an interview with Claude Lorea from the Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA)

US: Ed Sullivan, the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Market Intelligence at the Portland Cement Association (PCA), expects that cement consumption will decline in the second half of 2023 due to a worsening general economic outlook. However, he noted that order books for the construction industry were ‘strong’ for at least the next six months and that this would cushion the sector. Sullivan made his comments at a presentation at the World of Concrete conference in Las Vegas.

Sullivan said, "When looking at the big picture of real construction spending and cement consumption this year, we should expect both volumes to soften throughout the year, with significant declines in the second half of 2023." He added, "The downturn is expected to be short-lived as interest rates ease slightly and stronger infrastructure volumes materialise in 2024 and beyond."

Sullivan predicts that the US economy is gradually weakening under the weight of high inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical turmoil. However, he viewed the occurrence of a recession as unlikely. In the construction sector he forecasts that the private sector will continue decline in 2023 following a drop in 2022. Spending benefits from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are likely to be muted in 2023 before registering a stronger effect in 2024.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has elected Filiberto Ruiz as its next chair. He is the current vice-chair of the association and is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Votorantim Cimentos North America. He will succeed Ron Henley, the president of GCC of America, in the post.

Massimo Toso has been elected as the vice chair. He is the PCA’s Climate and Sustainability Council co-chair and is the president and CEO of Buzzi Unicem USA. David Loomes, the president of Continental Cement Company, has also joined the PCA board. He succeeds Tom Beck, the executive vice president of Summit Materials, who has stepped down from the board.

CalPortland completed its acquisition of the Redding cement plant from Martin Marietta this week. As previously announced the transaction involved the integrated cement plant in northern California, related cement terminals and 14 ready mixed concrete (RMC) plants also in the state. However, CalPortland’s parent company Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement revealed this time round that it is considering buying the Tehachapi cement plant from Martin Marietta too. It says it has some sort of preferential purchase agreement in place, although a final decision is yet to be made.

If CalPortland and Taiheiyo Cement do end up buying the Tehachapi plant as well as Redding then it will mark a fairly quick turnaround of owners. HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Hanson announced that it was selling up assets in its US West region to Martin Marietta for US$2.3bn in May 2021. The deal was completed by October 2021. Then, CalPortland said it was buying the Redding plant in March 2022. From an outside perspective it was not clear what Martin Marietta might have had planned for its new assets. Over three quarters of Martin Marietta’s revenue in 2021 came from its Aggregates and RMC products. However, it is also a prominent regional US cement producer with two plants in Texas and two plants in California, along with associated terminals. So, building up its cement business in California didn’t seem unfeasible. Now, as can be seen, it is likely to be sticking to its primary focus of aggregates and RMC. It is also worth noting that California has some of the stricter CO₂ reduction policies in the US with a 40% reduction target for 2030 (compared to 1990 levels) and a local emissions trading scheme that started in 2013.

Looking at the local cement production base in California, the latest development with the former Lehigh Hanson plants shows the changing situation since the subsidiary of HeidelbergCement left the region. Beforehand, Cemex, Lehigh Hanson and CalPortland each had a similar clinker production capacity. Then, Martin Marietta took the lead and now CalPortland looks set to become the frontrunner if it buys Tehachapi. With the Redding deal completed it now operates three integrated cement plants in California and one in Arizona. Alongside this it runs 15 terminals in Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington – and – two terminals in Alberta and British Colombia in Canada. The Redding plant is also a distinctive addition to its portfolio as it is further north than the other clinker units.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) data shows that cement shipments to California grew by 5% from 10.05Mt in 2019 to 10.57Mt in 2021. So far in 2022, shipments to the state rose by 3.4% year-on-year to 3.56Mt for January to April 2022 compared to 3.44Mt in the same period in 2021. However, clinker production fell by 5% to 8.94Mt in 2021 from 9.45Mt in 2019. This trend seems to have continued into 2022 with a 9% fall to 2.54Mt for January to April 2022 compared to 2.81Mt in the same period in 2021. Despite this, California remained the second largest OPC and blended cement producer in the US in April 2022. In its Western US Regional Outlook in May 2022, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) forecast that the Pacific region of the US (including California) will experience flat growth in cement consumption in 2023 due to a slowdown in residential consumption. However, consumption is then expected to bounce back sharply in 2024 as the effects of the infrastructure bill take effect.

This suggests that CalPortland has picked an uncertain time to start buying cement plants in California. Yet only last year, in 2021, Cemex began restarting production at a previously mothballed cement plant in Mexico to supply the south-west US. Alongside all of this, environmental regulations are tightening. However, the key difference between Martin Marietta and CalPortland is that the latter is owned by Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement, which is more cement-focused than the aggregate and concrete oriented Martin Marietta. No doubt Taiheiyo Cement’s intention to become more international also played a part in its decision making. If CalPortland does decide to buy Tehachapi then this may give observers an idea of how much further its ambitions go.

Argos USA announced this week that its integrated Roberta plant in Alabama is set to produce 100% Portland limestone cement (PLC) by June 2022. As part of the transition three of its terminals in North Carolina will also switch over at the same time. The company also expects that all of its plants will convert to PLC in 2023. Cement sites including Newberry in Florida, Harleyville in South Carolina and Martinsburg in West Virginia are already producing PLC.

The change by Argos marks the latest example in an ongoing trend of US-based cement companies moving entire plants to PLC production. In September 2021 LafargeHolcim US said that its integrated Midlothian plant in Texas was preparing to convert to full PLC production and that it would be the first plant in the US to do so. It later confirmed that the plant had done so by the end of 2021. In October 2021 GCC said that its Trident Plant in Montana would fully move to PLC in early 2022. Then in November 2021 Titan America said that its Pennsuco cement plant in Florida would make the change possibly by 2023. Moving into 2022 brought the news that LafargeHolcim US’ Ste. Genevieve plant in Missouri and its Alpena plant in Michigan had each transitioned to PLC production. Lehigh Hanson then rounded up the bunch earlier this month, at the start of February 2022, when it announced that a PLC was the primary product now coming out of its Mason City plant in Iowa. It even invited a US Member of Congress to celebrate!

The current expansionist phase of PLC usage in the US dates back to late 2020 when the Portland Cement Association (PCA) launched a dedicated website to promote the use of the blended cement by discussing its applications and benefits. It then released a new environmental product declaration in March 2021 and PLC received a mention in the PCA’s Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality when it was released a year later in October 2021. Lots of work went into PLC prior to 2020 though, both by the PCA and others. The first commercial production of PLC in the US started in 2005 and PLC gained its own blended cement specification in 2012. Notably, the PCA has been tracking the state acceptance of PLC by the Department of Transportation and it grew markedly during the 2010s.

The US is playing catch-up with PLC. In Europe its usage dates back to the 1960s. Cembureau, the European Cement Association, reported usage of around 30% in 2004. More recently in 2020, the VDZ, the German Cement Association, reported a similar figure domestically with the proportion of blended cement shipments including limestone, shale and multiple additives at 31.6%. In the US it is hard to gauge the scale of the current move towards PLC by producers, due to limited publicly available data. A PCA survey reported PLC production of 0.89Mt in 2016. If all the plants mentioned above convert fully to PLC and maintain their rated production capacity that would be something like 14Mt/yr of PLC in 2023 or 11% of the US’s total cement capacity. For comparison, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported total shipments of all blended cements at 3.3Mt in 2020 and a total of 5.4Mt for the first 11 months of 2021. Plus, remember that PLC is just one blended cement among others, like those that use slag or fly ash.

Recent developments show that a large change is coming towards the US cement market in the update of blended cements. It’s been a long time coming but the last six months have seen brisk increases in PLC production at scale. The exact data is not available but one might expect something around triple the current number of production plants making PLC if the US market heads towards European levels. This rough estimate doesn’t take into account existing partial PLC production levels. At the same time the US cement sector should see a fall in its emissions due to PLC’s 10% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to ordinary Portland cement

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) reports that cement consumption rose by 3.6% year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2021. Ed Sullivan, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the PCA, made the announcement at the World of Concrete trade fair in Las Vegas, Nevada. He also forecast that cement consumption would be driven by non-residential and public works in 2023 and 2024 as mortgage rates increased. The country is also set to spend US$1tn on new and rehabilitated infrastructure projects and this would consume 46Mt of cement over a five-year program. Over a quarter of this amount would be used on roads, bridges and resiliency structures.

The PCA’s president and chief executive officer Mike Ireland and Senior Vice President of Sustainability Rick Bohan also spoke at the event to further promote the association’s Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has expressed its support of the House of Representatives' new Infrastructure and Jobs Act, consisting of a US$1.2Tn infrastructure spending plan. The plan includes US$550bn in new federal investments before 2027. US$16bn is set aside for 'major projects' requiring special funding arrangements. The legislative body voted in favour of the bill on 7 November 2021. The act awaits the signature of US President Joe Biden. Biden previously unveiled a proposed US$2.25Tn infrastructure package in March 2021.

PCA president and chief executive officer Michael Ireland said "The PCA applauds the US House of Representatives for finally passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This bipartisan infrastructure bill not only addresses years of underinvestment in the nation’s infrastructure but will spur economic growth and job creation in communities across the country, improving the quality of life and our nation’s global competitiveness. As many are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, this legislation will further our nation’s recovery, creating thousands of well-paying jobs."

He continued "PCA members across the country appreciate the legislation passing a long-term reauthorisation of the surface transportation programme, including significant investments in our water infrastructure, providing funding for the department of energy to focus on the research, developmentand deployment of technologies for manufacturers to capture carbon emissions, and the exemption of cement from Buy America requirements. We are eager for President Biden to sign this legislation into law and start building a better future for America.”

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has published a roadmap to carbon neutrality for the cement and concrete sectors by 2050. It says that the strategy document demonstrates how the US cement and concrete industry, along with its entire value chain, can address climate change, decrease greenhouse gases and eliminate barriers that are restricting environmental progress. It added that the document is a ‘major step’ towards engaging US policymakers, industry partners and non-government organisations.

“Cement and concrete have been pivotal in building resilient, durable and sustainable communities that enable people to live safe, productive and healthy lives via structures that withstand natural and man-made disasters,” said PCA President and chief executive officer, Michael Ireland. “The PCA is uniquely positioned to lead the industry-wide ambition to achieving carbon neutrality and enable our member companies and industry partners to continue building a better future.”

The PCA’s roadmap outlines a number of reduction strategies across the various phases of the built environment including production at cement plants, construction including designing and building and everyday infrastructure in use. It also recognises five main areas of opportunity: clinker; cement; concrete; construction; and carbonation (using concrete as a carbon sink).

Notably goals include a reduction of coal and petcoke use at cement plants to 10% in 2050 from 60% at present, a clinker ratio of 75% in 2050 from 90% at present and a reduction of the CO₂ intensity of concrete of 60% by 2050. The roadmap also noted the necessity of carbon capture and storage/utilisation (CCUS) for reducing CO₂ emissions from cement production. However is pointed out that there are no commercial-scale CCUS installations at any cement plant within the US, location and permitting challenges remained and that infrastructure investment would be required to deal with the captured CO2.

US: Cemex USA’s Victorville cement plant in California has won the Portland Cement Association (PCA)’s Chairman’s Safety Performance Award 2021 in the Large category. The award recognises top safety performance. The Victorville cement plant previously won the award in 2019 and 2020. Cemex USA says that the plant recorded zero incidents in 2020. Earlier in 2021, it surpassed four years without a lost time injury to any employee or contractor.

President Jaime Muguiro said “Safety is our top priority, and Victorville cement plant is demonstrating that Zero4Life is possible. We are proud of the continued commitment of our team, and their achievement is a great example of what can happen when everyone is dedicated to safety and works together to look out for one another.”

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has appointed Dave Nepereny as an honorary member. The role is awarded to those who, in the opinion of the PCA board of directors, have rendered outstanding service to the cement industry and the association. Nepereny was a former chief executive officer at Buzzi Unicem and as a member of the PCA board of directors, he served as a former chairman from 1994 - 1995. He also served as a board member to former PCA sister organisation, CTLGroup.

“Dave was actively involved with multiple aspects of PCA, setting an example as a former Chairman and chair for multiple committees, including the Membership Development, Market Development Council, and the Administrative council,” said PCA chairman and president of GCC of America, Ron Henley.