Displaying items by tag: Pennsylvania

US: Kosmos Cement has ordered a mobile ship unloader from Sweden-based Bruks Siwertell for use at its terminal in Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The product is designed to discharge vessels up to 5000dwt and has a continuous rated cement handling capacity of 300t/hr. Delivery is planned for the spring of 2023.

US: Buzzi Unicem USA plans to switch from producing Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) to Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) at all of its plants by the end of 2022. It said that it intends to transition from traditional ASTM C150 type I and II (OPC) cements in favour of ASTM C595 type IL cement (PLC). So far its Cape Girardeau and Festus plants in Missouri, Greencastle plant in Indiana, Maryneal plant in Texas and Pryor plant in Oklahoma have already completed the move to the PLC. The San Antonio plant in Texas will complete its transition in June 2022, the Chattanooga plant in Tennessee will switch its product line by September 2022 and the Stockertown cement plant in Pennsylvania will complete its conversion later in 2022. The company added that its engineers will continue working to increase the limestone content in cement by up to the permitted 15% and develop High Early Limestone cement, along with other new cement products with reduced clinker content.

US: A fire has been contained within the alternative fuels system at Holcim US’ integrated Whitehall cement plant in Pennsylvania. Suppression systems were activated and then fire fighters attended the scene, according to the Express-Times newspaper. The plant has notified the US Mine Safety and Health Administration about the incident. No injuries have been reported and an investigation is ongoing. A fact sheet about the plant says that it uses 2m tires/yr as part of its alternative fuels mix. It uses coal and petcoke for 50% of its mix.

US: Buzzi Unicem has announced the upcoming transition of its 1Mt/yr Stockertown cement plant in Pennsylvania’s Northampton County to 100% Type IL Portland limestone cement (PLC) production in 2022. Local press has reported that Buzzi Unicem and its subsidiary Alamo Cement Company will have fully converted to PLC production at ‘several locations in the US’ before the end of the year, according to the group.

US: Flexicon has expanded the production facilities at its headquarters at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The increased 4645m² space at the site will be used to store sub-assemblies, crating and the staging of assembled equipment. This will allow the main plant to increase its production capacity for fabrication and assembly.

Flexicon specialises in bulk handling equipment. It owns and operates manufacturing facilities in Brisbane, Australia and Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and maintains factory-direct sales offices in Barcelona in Spain, Santiago in Chile and Singapore.

US: The death of a maintenance worker has been reported at Buzzi Unicem USA’s Hercules Cement at Stockertown in Pennsylvania. The cause of the fatality has not been released pending an investigation by state authorities and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, according to the Express Times newspaper. The incident occurred on 26 July 2021.

US: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Cement and Keystone Cement have stepped away from an agreement to merge their businesses. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to challenge the proposed merger in late May 2021.

FTC Bureau of Competition acting director Maribeth Petrizzi said, “This is great news for cement customers in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey. The FTC voted 4-0 to challenge this transaction because it would have reduced the number of significant competitors in the market for grey Portland Cement in this region from four to three. I’m grateful to the bureau’s staff for their tireless efforts throughout this investigation, but also to our partners in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, who worked closely with us to ensure that cement customers in this region will continue to benefit from competition between Lehigh and Keystone.”

US: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed an administrative complaint and authorised a legal suit against Lehigh Cement’s acquisition of Keystone Cement. The HeidelbergCement subsidiary acquired the subsidiary of Mexico-based Elementia in September 2019. The commission said that the acquisition may be harmful to competition in the grey cement market in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as it reduces the number of competitors to three from four and enlarges the largest. It added that Keystone Cement’s aggressive pricing had previously caused Lehigh Cement to lower its prices.

The case will go to trial at administrative court in November 2021.

US: Titan America, part of Greece-based Titan Group, has launched ProAsh and EcoTherm. Both products are made from ash reclaimed from landfill and can be used in both cement and concrete production. Titan America subsidiary Separation Technologies produces the materials at its Brunner Island reclaimed ash drying and electrostatic separation plant in Pennsylvania.

President and chief executive officer Bill Zarkalis said, “This breakthrough achievement represents Titan America’s commitment to the reduction of CO₂ through innovation as we plan to deploy this technology across the construction material sector.” He added “By harnessing the power of this technology, Separation Technologies is utilising a revolutionary beneficiation process that is capable of converting reclaimed ash from ash basins in an efficient manner. The result is a high-grade, low carbon construction product.”

Mexico: Elementia sold 5.3Mt of cement in 2020, up by 4% year-on-year from 5.1Mt in 2019. Consolidated net sales rose by 8% to US$1.34bn from US$1.24bn, while earnings before interest, depreciation, taxation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 8% to US$170m from US$157m. Cement business sales rose in all regions with the exception of Central America with particular earnings growth record in the US.

The company also noted that the sale of its integrated Bath plant in Pennsylvania, US remained under review by competition authorities with a response hoped for in April 2021. The sale of the unit to HeidelbergCement-subsidiary Lehigh Hanson was first announced in September 2019.