Displaying items by tag: US

US/China: The Office of the US Trade Representative has proposed placing a 10% tariff on mineral and other products from China including cement. The list includes over 600 items and it will come into force following a period for public comment in August 2018.

Mineral products affected by the proposed tariffs of interest to the cement industry include limestone flux, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, anhydrite, clinkers of Portland, aluminous, slag, supersulfate and similar hydraulic cements, white Portland cement, Portland cement, aluminous cement, slag cement, refractory cements, additives for cement, cement based building materials and more.

The inclusion of additional products to a tariff list follows an earlier decision by the US government to tax imports from China worth US$34bn that came into force in early July 2018.

US: Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has resigned. The decision follows investigations into his security spending and other expenses, according to the Associated Press. In his resignation letter Pruitt said he had no regrets. He will be replaced by acting administrator Andrew Wheeler.

US: Ametek Brookfield has appointed Vicki Case as Global Marketing Director. She has spent the past 12 years working at Sealed Air in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Most recently she worked as the VP Marketing, Global e-Commerce & Fulfillment Solutions for the company. Case is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering.

US: Welding Alloys has released information about a project to rebuild a FCB Horomill at Buzzi Unicem’s Maryneal cement plant in Texas in early 2018. The engineering company’s Mexican subsidiary Welding Alloys Panamericana has experience of rebuilding these types of mills and it collaborated with the group’s American wing, Welding Alloys USA, on the project.

UK: Micromeritics Instrument Corporation, a US-headquarted manufacturer of products for advanced material characterisation, has purchaed Freeman Technology. Freeman Technology specialises in providing instruments for the measurement of powder flow properties and other behavioural properties of powders. It manufactures instruments that deliver data to assist its customers in maximising process and product understanding, accelerating research and development toward formulation and commercialisation as well as supporting the optimisation of powder processes.

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 first ship from McInnis Cement’s plant in Canada has docked at the company’s terminal in the Bronx, New York. The NACC Alicudi docked at the terminal in mid-June 2018. The event follows the start of commercial production at McInnis Cements’ plant in Port-Daniel–Gascons, Quebec in June 2017.

US: BinMaster has launched its new DD-3000 Dust Alert sensor product. The product is targeted to detect baghouse leaks when installed in stacks, ducts or pipes. The sensor is designed to save time by eliminating the need for manual inspections, reduce maintenance and prevent emissions and downtime.

The product uses inductive electrification technology to detect when particulate emissions exceed a preset level. As particles flow past and over the sensing probe, they induce a charge into the probe that creates small electrical currents. This method minimises the influence of sensor contamination, particulate velocity change or temperature drift.

Sensor models are available with either an alarm relay, generally used to alert to a need for maintenance, or a 4-20mA transmitter output option used for monitoring trends and compliance.

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.

Mexico: Cemex says that its digital platform, Cemex Go, has reached over 10,000 customers or a quarter of its worldwide customer base. Cemex Go is currently available in Mexico, the US, Colombia, the UK, and Germany and is expected to be deployed in half of the company’s markets in the coming weeks. By the end of 2018, it is expected to be available in all of Cemex’s key locations, serving approximately 45,000 customers.

The system allows the company and its customers to will be used in real time to manage order placement, live tracking of shipments and invoices and payments for the company’s main products, including bagged and bulk cement. Cemex Go was introduced in Mexico and the US in late 2017.