Displaying items by tag: Indiana

US: Italy-based Bedeschi has been awarded a new order for the supply of two BED RNSH 1800/6 type apron feeders for Lehigh Cement’s integrated Mitchell plant in Indiana. The new feeders will be able to process up to 1300t/hr of crushed limestone and they will be placed in the primary and secondary crushing area to replace the old existing machines. They feature super duty design with CAT type chains and a Bedeschi super duty belt. As part of the installation Bedeschi has used a three dimensional survey to define the exact room availability in the existing plant. The new feeders will join three others at the plant that were already ordered as part of an upgrade programme for clay crushing and additive dosing. No value for the order has been disclosed.

Lehigh Cement, a subsidiary of Germany-based HeidelbergCement, resumed work on its US$600m upgrade project at the Mitchell plant in February 2021. Work on the upgrade was suspended in early 2020.

US: Italy-based Buzzi Unicem subsidiary Lone Star Industries has concluded a settlement with the US Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Indiana over Clean Air Act violations at its integrated Greencastle plant in Indiana, dating from 2010 to the present day. The Indy Star newspaper has reported that under the terms of the settlement the producer must pay a fine of US$700,000. The authorities ordered the company to upgrade the plant in line with state and federal pollution regulations. The violations involved emissions of particulate matter that exceeded state and federal limits.

US: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Lehigh Cement has resumed work on an expansion at its 0.8Mt/yr Mitchell, Indiana cement plant with the execution of initial project plans and the delivery of materials to the site. Local media has reported that the upgrade will cost US$600m and create 1000 construction jobs over a four year project timeline.

Mitchell cement plant manager Tracy Crowther said, “We are currently receiving parts and over the summer this will continue to get busier. Much of the equipment will come in through a port near Louisville and will be hauled by truck up here. There will be some large equipment that will be moved in.”

On April 2020 it was reported that Lehigh Cement had suspended work on a 2.0Mt/yr expansion of the Mitchell plant to 2.8Mt/yr, on which it had broken ground in October 2019. The scheduled completion date moved to late 2023 from September 2022.

US: Germany-based Lehigh Hanson has announced a suspension of work on its 2.0Mt/yr expansion of the 0.8Mt/yr Mitchell plant in Indiana to 2.8Mt/yr to early 2021 at the latest due to ‘uncertainties resulting from’ the coronavirus. The target date for commissioning has also moved, to late 2023 from September 2022. Lehigh Cement Mitchell plant manager Jerry Miller said, “A construction project of this magnitude has numerous components, such as supply chain certainty, material deliveries and, importantly, worker availability.”

The upgrade received environmental clearance in July 2019 and the company broke ground at the site in October 2019.

Cemex pushed ahead yesterday and announced that it had sold the Kosmos Cement Company to Eagle Materials for around US$665m. It owns a 75% stake in the company, with Italy’s Buzzi Unicem owning the remaining share, giving it roughly US$449m once the deal completes. Proceeds from the sale will go towards debt reduction and general corporate purposes. The sale inventory includes a 1.7Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Louisville, Kentucky as well as seven distribution terminals and raw material reserves.

The decision to sell assets makes sense given Cemex’s financial results so far in 2019. It reported falling sales, cement volumes and earnings in the first nine months of the year although much of this was down to poor market conditions in Mexico. However, the US, along with Europe, was one of its stronger territories with rising sales. Earnings were impaired in the US, possibly due to bad weather in the southeast and competition in Florida, but infrastructure and residential development were reported to be promising.

Graph 1: Portland & Blended Cement shipments in 2018 and 2019. Source: United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Graph 2: Change in imports of hydraulic cement & clinker to the US in 2018 and 2019 from selected countries. Source: USGS.

United States Geological Survey (USGS) data also supports a picture of a growing US market. Shipments of Ordinary Portland Cement and blended cements grew by 2.4% year-on-year to 66.9Mt for the first eight months of 2019 from 65.4Mt in the same period in 2018. By region growth can be seen in the North-East, South and imports. Declines were reported in the West and Midwest. The states of Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee – the area where the Kosmos plant is located – saw shipments grow by 4% to 4.77Mt from 4.58Mt. It is worth noting that Louisville is in the north of Kentucky near the border with Indiana, where shipments also grew.

The Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) fall forecast may also have helped Cemex’s decision. Ed Sullivan, PCA Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, said that he expected cement consumption in the US to continue growing in 2019 and 2020 but with a slowing trend into 2021 following general gross domestic product (GDP) predictions. The PCA’s view is that pent-up demand following the recession in 2008 was gone and the economy was gradually weakening. Crucially though it didn’t think a recession was impending. In this scenario Cemex might be taking a medium-term view with regards to the Kosmos Cement Company.

Another more general interesting data point from the USGS was the change in import origins to the US. Imports grew by 11.3% to 66.9Mt in January to August 2019. The top five importing countries and their overall share remained the same but there was some movement between them. Turkish and Mexican imports surged at the expensive of Chinese ones as can be seen in Graph 2. The go-to explanation for this would be the on-going US - China trade war. Cemex is a Mexican company with a strong presence in both the US and Mexico. This change in the make-up of the import market in the US may also have informed its decision to sell Kosmos Cement as it looked at the macro scale.

More generally the US market is looking buoyant in the short to medium term. Plants are being sold like Kosmos Cement to Eagle Cement and the Keystone cement plant in Bath, Pennsylvania to HeidelbergCement and a major upgrade project is underway on the new production line at the Mitchell plant in Indiana. In Cemex’s case, as ever with asset sales, the seller sometimes has to make the hard decision of whether to divest a plant in a growing region to help the business in other places that might not be doing so well. The growth of America’s largest locally owned producer, Eagle Cement, may also give cheer to the US’ current ‘America First’ administration.

US: Lehigh Hanson has started construction work on a US$600m upgrade to its Mitchell cement plant. The groundbreaking ceremony follows approval of an air permit by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) in July 2019, according to WBIW radio. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement is building a new production line to replace the existing three lines at the site. Start-up for the line is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022.

US: Lehigh Cement has received permission from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for a US$600m upgrade to its integrated Mitchell plant. IDEM's Office of Air Quality granted a modification to the unit’s air permit in late June 2019 following a period of public comment, according to the Times-Mail newspaper. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement plans to increases the production capacity at the plant to 2.8Mt/yr from 0.8Mt/yr. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2020 and completion of the new plant is anticipated by the end of 2022. Once finished the upgrades will create 52 new jobs at the unit.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the winners of the 2019 Energy and Environment (E&E) Awards. The awards recognised environmental and community relations projects that were completed in 2018 and were presented at the 3rd Annual Cement and Concrete Fly-In.

The CalPortland Mojave cement plant in California won the Energy Efficiency award for the installation of a new classifier system for its vertical roller mill that increased energy efficiency by reducing fan power requirements. The plant also installed a control system for the finish mill that will maximise performance and help reduce wear on equipment. The classifier installation reduced the finish mill energy intensity by 1.5 to 2.0kWh/t, and the control system reduced energy intensity by 13%. In 2018 22% of the electricity consumed by the plant came from on-site renewable wind energy generation. CalPortland has implemented significant energy efficiency measures and its energy management program has been recognised by the Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star program as the Energy Star Partner of the Year for 15 years in a row.

Roanoke Cement Company and Titan America’s Troutville plant in Virginia won the Environmental Performance award for being the first cement manufacturing plant in the US to receive ISO 50001 certification for energy management of all aspects of energy procurement, design and use. The plant reduced its total electrical consumption by 10% and fossil fuels use by more than 12%. The plant has also implemented an alternative fuels program as part of its certification for the True Zero Waste Program, administered by Green Business Certification and has received silver status achieving a 96% rate of waste divergence from landfills.

Lehigh Hanson’s Permanente cement plant at Cupertino in California won the Innovation award for the installation of a water treatment system reducing concentrations of metals, including selenium, to meet permit limits. Lehigh Hanson developed a treatment system that combined ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis (UF/RO) technology in conjunction with biological treatment technology to remove metals, including selenium and dissolved solids. This ensured applicable effluent limits were met while optimising treatment capacity and efficiency. This treatment system is the first of its kind in the cement industry ensuring that effluent limits are met while, at the same time, limiting the quantity of waste needed to be managed.

Buzzi Unicem USA’s Greencastle cement plant in Indiana won the Land Stewardship award for opening a 4km smooth packed stone trail in conjunction with the not-for-profit People Pathways organisation as Phase 2 of the Putnam Nature Trail. Buzzi Unicem USA staff and People Pathways used heavy equipment for rough clearing and grading of the overgrown former railroad bed and improved and expanded the physical trail. These areas were then landscaped with trees, native prairie vegetation plugs, interpretive signage, benches, birdhouses and other features. Additional nature trail enhancements include placement of wildlife monitoring cameras along the trail, installation of nesting boxes and interpretive signage, and maintenance of the recently completed restoration of native flora installed in 2017 and 2018.

Cemex’s Lyons cement plant in Colorado won the Outreach award for volunteering work by its staff at the Rocky Mountain National Park in Boulder, Colorado, performing campground improvement activities at Glacier Basin Campground by moving rocks and fallen timber and clearing existing fire pits of ash deposits. The plant then introduced a new community outreach initiative by hosting a Manufacturing Day event, providing local students tours of the quarry and plant to increase youth interest in pursuing a vocation in skilled trades. Additionally, the plant teamed up with the Celestial Seasonings B Strong Ride for cancer care and research for an event aimed at increasing safety awareness while fundraising for two local organizations and their efforts to fight cancer.

US: Lehigh Cement’s Mitchell plant in Indiana has won a 2019 Governor’s Workplace Safety Award for innovations as a medium-sized company. The awards are issued by the Indiana Department of Labor.

The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement recorded no lost-time accidents in 2018 and the plant has not had a lost-time accident since September 2015, according to the Herald Times newspaper. The company uses a Safety Action Plan with specific targets that focus on areas of significant risk, including critical risk management and zero fatalities. It also runs weekly safety conversations between employees to raise health and safety issues with management.

US: Lehigh Hanson’s Speed cement plant in Indiana will be converted into a distribution terminal. The decision follows an investment of US$600m towards upgrading the Mitchell cement plant in Indiana, according to the Evening News and Tribune newspaper. At present the Speed plant has a cement production capacity of 1Mt/yr and the Mitchell plant has a production capacity of 0.7Mt/yr. Following the upgrade the Mitchell plant will have a capacity of 2.8Mt/yr. Changing the focus of the Speed unit is expected to lead to the loss of 100 jobs. although half of these could be moved to Mitchell.