Displaying items by tag: United States Geological Survey

US: US cement companies produced 95Mt of cement in 2022, up by 2.2% year-on-year from 93Mt in 2021, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The country exported 900,000t of cement and clinker, down by 4.3% from 940,000t. The USGS recorded a 9.1% leap in apparent national consumption, to 120Mt from 110Mt. Cement imports helped to close the gap, rising by 20% year-on-year to 24Mt from 19.9Mt.

Among the US's main trade partners for cement imports, cement production fluctuated in 2022. Turkish cement production rose by 3.7% year-on-year to 85Mt, Mexican cement production fell by 3.8% year-on-year to 50Mt and Vietnamese cement production rose by 9.1% year-on-year to 120Mt. Globally, the USGS estimated a year-on-year cement production decline of 6.8% to 4.1Bnt.

US: Cement companies produced 58.5Mt of clinker during the first nine months of 2022, in line with nine-month 2021 volumes, according to the United States Geological Service (USGS). The USGS’s Cement in September 2022 report recorded export volumes of 314,000t of cement in the nine-month period up to September 2022, down by 4.2% year-on-year. Meanwhile, delivery figures showed a growth in domestic cement shipments of 4.1% year-on-year to 83.2Mt.

US: Total US cement shipments grew by 4% to 52.4Mt in the first half of 2022 from 50.4Mt in the same period in 2021. Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows that local shipments and imports rose by 3.5% to 44.1Mt and 7% to 8.31Mt respectively. The largest sources of imports of cement and clinker were Turkey at 4.57Mt, Canada at 2.19Mt, Mexico at 1.28Mt, Greece at 1.23Mt and Vietnam at 0.94Mt. The largest cement producing states in the reporting period, in descending order, were Texas, California and Missouri.

Congratulations are due to the National Cement Company of Alabama and Vicat for the inauguration of the new production line at the Ragland cement plant in Alabama. The event took place on 21 July 2022.

The US$300m project was originally announced in late 2019. It then took two years to build with construction starting in January 2020. Key features include a raw vertical grinding mill, a new roller mill, a five stage preheater tower, an automatic clay storage system, a 78m tall homogenisation silo, an alternative fuels storage area for tyre-derived fuel, sawdust and wood chips, a laboratory and a new control room. The new kiln was previously reported to have a clinker production capacity of 5000t/day and it will add up to 2Mt/yr of cement production capacity to the plant. ThyssenKrupp signed up as the principal equipment supplier in 2019 and H&M was the main contractor. The production line is expected to reduce energy consumption by one third. Further change is scheduled with a switch to production of Portland limestone cement (PLC) from Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) by the start of 2023.

Vicat has repeatedly noted its affection for the plant as it was the first cement plant the group purchased outside of France, back in 1974. Indeed, Vicat’s group chair and chief executive officer Guy Sidos personally managed the Ragland plant in 2001. However, rather more prosaic reasons may also have been behind the decision to expand Ragland. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS) data, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee’s cement shipments grew by nearly 5% year-on-year to 7.1Mt in 2019 from 6.8Mt in 2018. Shipments are up by 3% year-on-year to 2.5Mt in the first four months of 2022 and the three states were the fifth largest region in the US for cement shipments in April 2022. A shortage of cement was also reported in Alabama in April 2022.

The other big US-based cement plant expansion is Lehigh Hanson’s US$600m upgrade to its Mitchell plant in Indiana. It also celebrated a milestone this week with a ‘topping out’ ceremony to mark the placement of the final section of steel for the stack. Another recent achievement here was the completion of a 169,000t storage dome supplied by Dome Technologies. The supplier says that the 67m diameter and 48m tall dome is the second largest clinker storage facility in Europe and North America, after one it previous built in Romania in 2008.

The Mitchell K4 project was announced in mid-2018 and then ground breaking began in late 2019. However, the start of the coronavirus pandemic delayed construction in early 2020 before it restarted in September 2020. The revised commissioning date was then moved back about half a year to early 2023. The key part of this project is that it will replace the plant’s three current kilns with just one. The new production line will increase the site’s production capacity, reduce energy usage and decrease CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement. It was reported by local press back in 2018 that the project would increase the plant’s cement production capacity to 2.8Mt/yr. The project has been linked to supplier KHD with CCC Group as the contractor.

It’s fascinating to see two major new upgrades to cement plants emerging in a mature market like the US and during an unprecedented event like the emergence of coronavirus. No doubt compelling tales will emerge of how both teams coped with managing nine-figure capital expansion projects as a global public health emergency unfolded. The US market has been on a roll in recent years, despite all the uncertainty in the world, and so far it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. With luck both of the projects feature above have timed their opening right.

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.

Cement shortages were being reported in the US media last week in Alabama and South Carolina. The owner of a ready-mixed concrete supplier in South Carolina was blaming it on labour and supply shortages. Dan Crosby, the president of Metrocon, told Fox News that his business could only take on 60% of the work it could normally cope with due to the issue despite demand for construction growing in the state. Meanwhile, the Alabama Concrete Industries Association said that its home state saw a 14% increase in the demand for concrete in 2021 but that a cement shortage might cause delays to projects. The association also pointed the blame at labour and supply issues. It pointed out that high demand for concrete during the winter prevented inventory being built up and then the annual cement plant maintenance breaks in the spring added to the problems. Once contractors actually secured supplies of cement they then faced further delays due to a nationwide truck driver shortage!

Graph 1: Annual rolling cement shipments in the South of the US. Source: USGS.

Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) doesn’t especially shed light on the situation in Alabama and South Carolina. Alabama was the fifth largest cement producing state in the country in January 2022 but this is unsurprising as it’s the state with the fifth largest cement production capacity. Rolling annual data on Portland and blended cement shipments by origin show the effects of the coronavirus outbreak in the south from the start of 2020 to January 2022. Shipments took a dive in 2020 and then mostly recovered in 2021. However, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee saw shipments rise from 7.1Mt pre-pandemic to 7.6Mt in January 2022. South Carolina’s shipments grew from 3Mt to 3.2Mt. Regionally, the North East had a similar pattern although, unlike the South, shipments have surpassed those at the start of 2020. The Midwest and West were different with a general upwards trend over the two years, although the West softened slightly from mid-2021 onwards. Overall the US as a whole has seen its shipments grow throughout this period.

Ed Sullivan from the Portland Cement Association (PCA) told the May 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine that the US cement sector did well in 2021 with a 4.1% year-on-year rise in sales to 104Mt. However, he flagged up supply chain problems that actually slowed growth, led by a lack of staff.

The other point along these lines that Sullivan made was that imports of cement might not necessarily be able to compensate for domestic supply issues due to global demand for shipping post-coronavirus. USGS data placed imports to the US at 13.7Mt in 2019 compared to 16.3Mt in 2021. Notably, Cemex restarted one production line in 2021 at its CPN cement plant in Sonora State in Mexico to export cement to the west of the US. In March 2022 it added that it was going to restart another line at the plant also. It’s not alone though as GCC reported in January 2022 that a line at one of its plants in Chihuahua, Mexico, was exporting cement to Texas. Sullivan reckoned that January 2022 was ‘weak’ but that it was followed by an ‘extremely strong’ February 2022. The first quarter results from Holcim and CRH seem to back this up with the former describing the period as ‘outstanding’ and the region leading its sales and earnings growth rate globally. CRH reported strong demand in central and southern regions.

As the US economy restarted following the peak of the early coronavirus waves in 2020, various supply chain issues have manifested. Staff shortages are one issue and this can also worsen other logistic problems. The south seems particularly vulnerable to all of this as it is both the country’s largest cement market and because demand has held up. In January 2022 research by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified several reasons for staff shortages in the US and the UK. These included increased inactivity among older workers, the so called ‘She-cession’ (where female employment has overly reduced due to coronavirus trends) and shifting worker preferences amid strong labour demand.

Staff shortages are expected to sort themselves out throughout 2022 but favourable forecast demand for cement in the US is balanced by inflationary pressure. Persistent low staffing levels could further add to inflation growth. The US cement sector may be doing well at the moment but even success carries risks.

Global Cement’s Robert McCaffrey will be giving a keynote presentation at the IEEE-PCA Cement Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday 3 May 2022. The May 2022 issue of Global Cement Magazine, including interviews with PCA chief executive officer Mike Ireland and chief economist Ed Sullivan, is available to download now.

US: Cement companies produced 79.2Mt of cement in 2021, according to United States Geological Service (USGS) data. The figure corresponds to a 0.1% year-on-year rise from 79.1Mt in 2020. Texas contributed 10.7Mt, 13% of the production total, followed by Missouri with 8.97Mt (11%) and California with 8.94Mt (11%).

US: Cement shipments grew by 4.2% year-on-year to 107Mt in 2021 from 103Mt in 2020. Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) show that domestic shipments and imports rose by 2.3% to 90.8Mt and 16% to 16.3Mt respectively. Regionally, particular gains were reported in New England and Middle Atlantic, West North Central, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. Puerto Rico reported a 47% decline in shipments. The largest cement exporting nations to the US were Turkey, Canada, Greece, Mexico and Vietnam. Turkey, Greece and Vietnam each increased their imports by over 30% in 2021.

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: Total shipments of cement in the US in the first 11 months of 2021 were 99.2Mt, up by 4.1% year-on-year from 95.3Mt in the corresponding period of 2020. The country imported 15.2Mt of cement, up by 17% from 13Mt.

Domestic clinker production for the year totalled 72.2Mt, up by 0.4% from 71.9Mt.