We focus on lime this week with an acquisition by Carmeuse in Argentina and a deal between Mississippi Lime Company (MLC) and Fortera. Plus, SigmaRoc bought Dolomitas in Lithuania last week and Martin Marietta’s acquisition of Lhoist North America (LNA) completed at the end of August 2026. Let’s find out more.
Belgium-based Carmeuse announced on 10 September 2026 that it had acquired a controlling stake in Argentina-based lime producer Caleras San Juan (CSJ). No value for the transaction was declared. Carmeuse did report that CSJ and its affiliates have a production capacity of over 0.75Mt/yr. It added that the company is “...well positioned to meet growing demand for lime across Argentina and central Chile.” The Valor Econômico newspaper reported that Carmeuse purchased an 80% stake in the business with manager and shareholder Raúl Cabanay retaining a 20% share. CSJ increased its production capacity from the mid-2010s and operates four Maerz kilns. The most recent of these kilns was lit in June 2026.
This transaction follows Carmeuse’s deal to buy a controlling stake in Chile-based Cbb for just under US$500m in 2025. That one was notable for both its lime and cement assets, since Cbb operated three integrated cement plants and one grinding plant at the time of the takeover. Although as Global Cement Weekly noted at the time, the profit from Cbb’s lime division was bigger than that from its cement division. At that time, we wondered whether Carmeuse might be tempted to divest the cement and concrete business but it doesn’t appear to have happened yet. The next step from here is how Carmeuse might use its lime plants and deposits in both Chile and Argentina to its commercial advantage. Options such as being the key supplier to certain key consumer industries such as lithium or copper on both sides of the Andes and synergistic benefits in procurement and logistics are obvious ones. On lithium for example, Carmeuse noted in its 2026 sustainability report that its acquisition of Cbb made lithium become the group’s second-largest end market for lime.
Meanwhile, in North America MLC signed an agreement with Fortera on 8 September 2026 to develop a commercial unit designed to produce over 0.3Mt/yr tons of low-carbon ReAct cement. Fortera’s ReCarb technology will be used to capture industrial CO₂ emissions from MLC’s production of high-calcium lime, converting the CO2 directly into cement. The partners have not said where the unit will be but they have said that it will add “domestic cement production capacity in the US.” One of MLC’s sites at Calera in Alabama, Ste. Genevieve in Missouri, Verona in Kentucky or Bonne Terre in Missouri might be the location. The agreement gives MLC one way to both deal with its CO2 emissions and create a new revenue stream. Graymont announced a similar deal with Fortera in mid-2025
This follows the news that SigmaRoc bought Akcinė Bendrovė ‘Dolomitas’ (Dolomitas) in Lithuania from its shareholders for €110m, with a further bill of €8m for certain non-core assets. Its target produces around 3.5Mt/yr of high-quality dolomite limestone, holds around 25 years of reserves and has the potential to extend this by an additional 20 years. SigmaRoc noted that Dolomitas is an “essential supplier to a significant network of companies and sectors in the Baltic States.” Its services also include logistics handling, through a network of its own trucks and open wagons for rail use and terminals.
As mentioned above, Martin Marietta’s acquisition of or combination with LNA completed in late August 2026. Readers can find more about this transaction here. Other recent lime news stories of note include an investment of around US$16m by the government of Papua New Guinea in late July 2026 into Pacific Lime and Cement’s (PLC) Central Lime project. In return the government received a 13% stake in the local subsidiary. The project intends to start quicklime production in the first quarter of 2027. The company wants to become the country’s first integrated lime and cement manufacturing operation.
All of the lime news stories covered above show the variety the industry can cover. Big deals by Carmeuse in South America, Martin Marietta in North America or SigmaRoc in the Baltics show similar commercial motivations to the kind of ones we normally cover in the cement sector. MCL’s (and Graymont’s) agreement with Fortera reminds us that lime manufactures too calcine limestone and increasingly face the same challenges in finding how to capture and/or use the CO2. Places like Papua New Guinea want to develop and companies like PLC are trying to help them.
And finally… as a reminder of the wider range of sectors that lime is used in, Switzerland-based sugar manufacturer Schweizer Zucker lit its new lime kiln last week. The Maerz HPS S2 lime kiln was put into operation in ‘sugar operating mode.’ Sugar beets started being processed and the first sugar of the 2026 campaign started earlier this week.
