Displaying items by tag: US

US: Ash Grove Cement Company has reportedly filed a permit amendment with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) seeking to close two of its three cement kilns in Midlothian, Texas. A local environmental pressure group, Downwinders at Risk, reported that it would convert the third kiln to dry production.

Ash Grove said that it was 'premature' to talk about the permit because the decision was not final. Downwinders' director Jim Schermbeck said that he expects the state agency to approve the change."They're going to reduce emissions. TCEQ will let them do that," Schermbeck said.

US cement kiln operators face a 2013 deadline to meet new emission standards from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The proposed changes would take production down by 20% at the site to around 0.95Mt/yr.

US: Holcim (US) Inc. has decided to permanently close its cement making operations at its Catskill facility, according to a New York State Department of Conservation Environmental Notice Bulletin. The company is also set to permanently close its Artesia plant in Mississippi. Both plants had previously been mothballed due to the stagnating US economy and low cement demand.

Holcim Vice President of Corporate Communications Robin DeCarlo said that the state of the economy had not improved. She said that this, along with a decrease in demand for cement across the US, had led Holcim to decide to permanently close the plants.

Speaking of the Catskill plant, DeCarlo said, "Nothing has really changed with the plant from the mothball status to the close. We still have staff there, we are still looking at our equipment and are maintaining our permits, so not much has changed."

DeCarlo said that there are no plans for Catskill at this point and that a timeline on the completion of the closures remains unclear. The announcement to cease operations at Catskill was reported to the Department for Environmental Conservation (DEC) for the sole purpose of changing Holcim's solid waste permit. This will allow it to dispose of its raw materials, according to DEC Region 4 spokesman Rick Georgeson.

US: Doug Black, currently chief executive of CRH's Americas Materials Division, has been appointed to the newly created position of president and chief operating officer of Oldcastle Inc, the holding company for CRH's operations in the Americas. Black will report to Mark Towe, chief executive officer of Oldcastle. Aged 47, Black joined Oldcastle in 1995 and has held a series of key leadership positions at Oldcastle and in the Precast, Architectural Products (APG) and Materials operations.

CRH, the international building materials group, has announced a number of changes within its management team in the United States, effective from 20 February 2012. Commenting on these changes, Myles Lee, CRH chief executive said, "These appointments and subsequent follow-on changes strengthen our organisational structure and enhance our ability to execute our strategies and achieve long-term performance and growth."

US: Ozinga Bros. Inc., a concrete producer, has been given the go-ahead to build a new US$250m cement plant in Chicago, Illinois. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued a permit for the project in December 2011. A comment period has now passed with no known objections. Ozinga has 27 concrete plants in the Chicago area.

It is forecast that the new plant would provide around 300 construction jobs until it is completed in 2015. It would then be commissioned to a capacity of 1Mt/yr. The company has lined up a 50-acre site near Lake Calumet for the project, which was formerly a Cargill grain facility. Development officials are enthusiastically welcoming Ozinga's proposal as Chicago has suffered a massive loss of manufacturing over recent decades. No new industrial plant has been built within the city limits since the 1980s.

The proposal by a concrete producer to set up a new cement plant, which was first mooted in summer 2011, is surprising given the current financial and environmental regulatory climate. Ozinga says that it wants to be able to ensure a reliable supply of cement for its concrete, despite an estimated 60% drop in its revenue since 2007.

Ozinga is looking to keep pace with vertical integration by other concrete and cement producers, which it sees as a potential threat to its own cement supply. Commonly cement producers are looking to buy-up smaller concrete producers in order to increase efficiencies and their bottom lines. This move would see an unusual reversal of these roles. In previous economic booms, Ozinga has seen its cement supply dry up due to competition with larger producers. On occasion it has been forced to source cement from as far afield as Thailand and South Korea, increasing its transport costs to unsustainable levels. It fears that it may be left with the same problem again when demand for concrete returns in the US.

However, despite the enthusiasm from many quarters within Chicago, the Ozinga plant is far from a done deal. Expected to employ about 80 full-time employees, it could yet be subjected to an incentive-spiked bidding war between the job-hungry states of Illinois and Indiana. Ozinga executives have met with Govenor Mitch Daniels and other officials in Indiana, where Ozinga already has seven ready-mix plants, but neither state has yet offered project-specific incentives.

"We're happy to work with the group and show them the advantages Indiana has to offer," said Jim Staton, regional director in Crown Point at the Indiana Economic Development Corp. "We do that with every company." Ted Stalnos, president of the Calumet Area Industrial Commission, which has backed the project, said, "We would be very disappointed if Ozinga suddenly decided to go in that direction."

"This is like a survival move for us," said Martin Ozinga IV, the fourth generation at the 84-year-old firm. "If the economy comes back at some time, the country is going to be short (of cement) again." Ozinga added that he did not expect financing the project to be a problem, with banks already interested in the plan.

US: Four Roanoke Cement Company distribution terminals have achieved the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Challenge for Industry, which recognises plants that demonstrate a commitment to the environment by achieving a 10% reduction in energy intensity within five or fewer years.

"This achievement was the result of a supreme team effort," said Don Ingerson, VP of Cement and Aggregates, Sales and Marketing at Roanoke Cement, "The focus on reducing energy by each and every one of our people at the terminals is an excellent example of our commitment to continuous improvement. With that, our energy management knowledge continues to grow as we share it with our customers and our community."

The recognised operations include terminals in Richmond, Front Royal and Chesapeake (all in Virginia) and Castle Hayne, North Carolina. The average energy intensity reduction for all four terminals was 21.76%. "We are proud that these four facilities are the first to be awarded among the cement sector," stated Steven Drzymala, Energy Systems Engineer with Titan's Corporate Engineering Department. "This is a great achievement."

US: The German cement maker HeidelbergCement has said that it will not place a counter bid for US competitor Vulcan after US Martin Marietta offered US$4.8bn for Vulcan.

HeidelbergCement's CEO Bernd Scheifele said that HeidelbergCement would wait until the deal was closed and then see if any assets are put up for sale. He said that he does not expect any big consolidation moves in the industry in the short term, because companies are currently preoccupied with reducing their debts.

Scheifele stuck to the company's forecast to book US$15.3bn in revenue and US$1.82bn in operating profit in 2011, both above 2010's figures.

US: According to the latest research report by RNCOS, US Cement Industry Analysis, an improvement in infrastructure spending along with growing domestic demand from almost all the prominent industry verticals will enable the cement consumption to grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 8% during 2011-2015. The cement industry in the US forms an important part of its economy and although recent years have been quite discouraging for the industry, the country sustained its position as the third largest cement consumer globally.

The RNCOS report highlights that the US will remain as one of the world's largest markets for OPC, with imports to fulfil the shortfall between domestic capacity and total US consumption. It expects that housing construction will boost cement demand in the US over the period to 2015 and says that biogas fuel is fast emerging as an alternative fuel for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the country.

US: Lafarge has reiterated that its expansion and modernisation plan at its Ravena plant in New York State is on track, hitting back at rumours from recently laid-off employees that the company had slowed down or even scrapped its plans to expand the site. 

During a press tour of the site, Lafarge's environmental manager for North America, John Reagan, provided evidence that the project had moved to a pre-construction stage. The US$300m modernisation project underwent nearly three years of permitting with the Final Environmental Impact Statement granted in the summer of 2011. Contractors are dismantling structures at the adjacent Callanan Industry site, so that Lafarge has the room for expansion.

Reagan said that the final design and procurement of materials is ongoing with the construction phase planned from late 2011 to 2014, with start-up planned for mid-2014 and full operation planned for 2015. “2015 seems like a long time from now,” Reagan said, “But it’s not much time to complete all the work that has to be done.” Additionally, the senior project manager, John Light, spoke of the upcoming procurement of heavy equipment including new vertical roller mills.

Over the past few weeks several former Lafarge employees, some of whom were among the 39 laid off on 27 October 2011, have accused the company of everything from not intending to build the new plant to mismanagement. One has accused the company of doing just the bare minimum required to keep the permits valid before closing the plant when the permits expire. 

Lafarge said that it plans to stay in Ravena and that the layoffs and the cut in production were related to the ailing US economy. The plant will soon go to a one-kiln operation, a 50% reduction in capacity. “Demand for cement will determine what capacity we run at,” said Reagan. “We anticipate, based on industry forecasts, that demand will not change much during the next two years."

US: The US House of Representatives approved the Cement Sector Relief Act of 2011 (H.R. 2681) on 6 October 2011. The House voted 262-161 in favour of the bill, with 25 Democrats in support.

If the bill becomes law the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be forced to repeal existing rules for toxic emissions from cement kilns and revise them. The bill would also give those facilities at least five additional years to comply.

The White House and top Senate Democrats strongly oppose the bill, but some Democrats in the Senate have supported delaying the cement regulations, leading supporters of the bill to be optimistic even though passage through the Senate appears unlikely.

Supporters of the bill say that the EPA has set emissions targets that will be difficult to achieve in practice and cause some cement manufacturers to close or scale down production during a recession. The Portland Cement Association stated that about 18 of 97 cement plants in the US would have to close as a result of the rules. By contrast the EPA said that 10 US cement-manufacturing facilities would have to be idled after the rule goes into effect in 2013, unless market conditions changed.

Several congressmen said during a debate on the bill that cement plants in their states could not meet the EPA requirements. "We want a regulation to be promulgated that you can actually achieve with real-world technology," said Texan Republican Representative Joe Barton.

Public-health groups and the EPA also argue that the bill directs the EPA to set standards that are less burdensome to the industry, limiting the agency's ability to impose tough rules if it believes they are necessary. The White House has said it strongly opposes the legislation and that US President Obama's advisers would recommend a veto.

US: Congressmen Steve Chabot (Ohio) and Geoff Davis (Kentucky) have sent an open letter to US President Barack Obama regarding his visit to the Cincinnati area in northern Kentucky. Noting that the President chose a ready-mix concrete plant as the location for his remarks, Chabot and Davis have urged the President to support the Portland Cement Association (PCA)-backed Cement Sector Relief Act of 2011 (H.R. 2681) that is currently moving through the House of Representatives.

If enacted, H.R. 2681 would stop the federal government from imposing what the industry and the PCA see as excessive regulations, previously described as 'avalanche' of legislation, on cement manufacturers, threatening thousands of American jobs.

The EPA estimates that just one of the three proposed rules could threaten 12 of the US's 100 cement plants, which represent 11% of the nation's cement production capacity. According to experts at the Southern Methodist University, "Should 10% of the domestic industry disappear the direct, indirect and induced job losses would exceed 15,000. This figure does not include possible job losses in the huge construction sector that might occur in the face of higher concrete prices."