Displaying items by tag: US

US: Staff members from Ash Grove Cement, Argos USA and Lehigh Hanson have won awards at the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) 2018 John P Gleason, Jr Leadership Awards. The awards recognise PCA members who have exhibited leadership in advancing industry programs and initiatives. The scheme is named after John ’Jay’ Gleason who served as PCA president from 1986 until his retirement in 2007.

Steve Minshall, Corporate Director, Safety and Health at Ash Grove Cement won the Business Continuity award. He has served on the PCA Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Committee for two decades, where the PCA say he has proven to be a strong safety leader in implementing many programs and initiatives to reduce workplace injuries. He has led efforts to better partnership with regulatory agencies in pursuit of the common goal of safety. Finalists in this category were Brett Lindsay, Environmental & Energy Manager at Salt River Materials Group, and Steve Wilcox, Cement Technical Director at Argos USA.

Lori Tiefenthaler, Senior Director of Marketing at Lehigh Hanson won the Market Development award. As chair of the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) in 2017, Tiefenthaler led efforts to better align the missions of allied cement and concrete associations, including an effort to launch PavementDesigner.org, which is a joint project between PCA, ACPA and National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. She has served on the executive board for the National Concrete Consortium, through which she has helped improve connections and outcomes for the cement and concrete industries with federal and state departments of transportation and academia. Finalists in this category were Bill Asselstine, Vice President Sustainability at St. Marys Cement/VCNA, and David Gray, Market Manager at GCC of America.

Gina Lotito, Vice President, Energy & Environmental, GCC of America won the Young Leaders award. She is an active member of the PCA Environment & Energy Committee, where she has been chair and vice chair of the Sustainable Manufacturing Subcommittee, and served on the Sustainable Development Committee. She has proven a leader in promoting the use of clean alternative fuels for cement production, and in federal advocacy efforts to lower regulatory barriers for using such fuels under the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials Rule. Finalists in this category were Ed Griffith, Vice President Sales & Marketing, US at St. Marys Cement/VCNA and Adam Posly, Production Manager at LafargeHolcim US.

US: Illinois Cement has installed a Roll Gen System supplied by Martin Engineering at its La Salle plant in Illinois. The power station supplies energy to a remote conveyor location at the site. The patent-pending design uses the kinetic energy of the moving belt to generate enough electricity to drive an automated dust suppression system, a pneumatic belt cleaner tensioner and a series of air cannons, helping operators at the Illinois Cement Plant reduce dust and spillage, increase cargo flow efficiency and minimise labour costs for cleaning and maintenance.

The Martin Roll Gen System is designed to create a self-contained mini power station that allows operators to run electrical monitoring systems, safety devices and a variety of other components. Martin Engineering says that the device is considered a ‘significant’ step toward eliminating power production obstacles, as conveyors move into the next generation of ‘smart systems.’

“Running auxiliary power can be both complicated and costly, requiring expensive labour and oversized cables to accommodate the inevitable voltage drop over long runs, as well as transformers, conduit, junction boxes and other components,” said Andrew Timmerman, Product Development Engineer at Martin Engineering. “The entire project has been a success, particularly in how many man-hours we save in maintenance and upkeep. The tensioning system does a great job, and the Roll Gen puts out enough power that we’re considering adding an automated secondary cleaner and a vibrating dribble chute to capture even more carryback.”

Martin Engineering builds products for bulk materials handling. The company has it headquarters in Neponset, Illinois. It has offices in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, India and the UK.

US: Mississippi Lime Company has appointed Kenny Adams as the Plant Superintendent of the Vicksburg lime plant in Mississippi. He holds over 20 years of experience in plant production. He joined the company’s Verona plant in 2010 as a Lead Kiln Operator. In 2014, he was promoted to Supervisor. In his new role, he will oversee Vicksburg’s production and support operations.

US: Tim Breen, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Motion Industries, has died suddenly. The 58-year old began his career with Berry Bearing Company in 1982 and worked as a Sales Representative, Branch Manager, Regional Manager, and Corporate Accounts Manager, according to the Birmingham Business Journal.

His responsibilities continued to grow after Berry Bearing and Motion Industries joined forces in 1993. He worked as a Division Officer and Group Officer and took responsibility of all the US locations in 2011 as Executive Vice President and chief operating officer (COO). Breen was promoted to Motion Industries President and COO in 2013, before his promotion in November 2014 to President and CEO.

"Motion Industries has lost a great leader and the world has lost an amazing human being," said Motion Industries. "Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Tim have lost a dear friend and an inspiration. Tim leaves behind a great company, a great culture and a great team that he affectionately referred to as 'The Motion Family.' His spirit will forever live on at Motion."

Motion Industries is an industrial parts distributor of bearings, mechanical power transmission, electrical and industrial automation, hydraulic and industrial hose, hydraulic and pneumatic components, industrial products, safety products, and material handling.

UK: Refractory producer RHI Magnesita says that its cement and lime segment was ‘flat’ in the first half of 2018. It blamed this on on-going low capacity utilisation in China and Brazil and ‘some’ market share losses due to its prices. The adjusted sales revenue of its Industrial Division, including cement and lime, rose by 14.3% year-on-year to Euro413m in the first half of 2018 from Euro362m in the same period of 2017. Overall, the company reported a 24.6% increase in revenue to Euro1.51bn from Euro1.21bn.

In a separate release RHI Magnesita subsidiary Magnesita said that the company’s revenue rose by 81.6% to US$133m. This was attributed to sales to the cement business in North America and higher deliveries in Europe in 2018. However, Magnesita’s services business suffered from a poor cement market in Brazil.

US: Eagle Materials Inc. has announced that Michael Haack has been named as its new President in addition to his role as Chief Operating Officer (COO). The announcement was made by Dave Powers, Eagle’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). "Michael has been serving as our COO since 2014 and has distinguished himself across all of our lines of business,” said Powers. “This expansion of Michael's role reflects the company's significant growth in recent years and the opportunity to build our leadership capacity, as we extend Eagle's track-record as the benchmark operating performer in the industry."

Michael Haack added, "I am excited to take on this expanded responsibility, as we continue to pursue our well-established strategy of value creation and capitalise on the many opportunities we see ahead."

Prior to joining Eagle, Haack spent 17 years at Halliburton Energy Services, holding successively senior operating positions, culminating with the management of Global Operations for Sperry Drilling, a multi-billion dollar company in the drilling and evaluation division of Halliburton. Haack holds a Master of Science degree from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University, both in Industrial Engineering, as well as an MBA from Rice University.

Nigeria: A team of US investors announced that it will seek to revitalise Nigercem, located in Nkalagu, Ebonyi State. Addressing a cross section of stakeholders on 9 August 2018, the Chief Executive of Ibeto Nigeria Limited, Chief Cletus Ibeto said, “I am standing before you with a team of American financiers, who are here on an assessment visit to the plant.”

In her remarks, the leader of the American foreign investors, Amanda Wester, said, “We extol Ibeto Nigeria Limited the core investor in Nigercem in its commitment to establish a new 6000t/day process cement plant and 45MW capacity power plant in this first phase of the project at Nkalagu.

US: Monarch Cement’s net sales fell by 3% year-on-year to US$74.3m in the first half of 2018 from US$76.8m in the same period in 2017. Its net income decreased by 42% to US$4.8m from US$8.23m. The building materials company operates a cement plant at Humboldt, Kansas and a terminal at Des Moines, Iowa.

Nigeria: A group of investors from the US have visited Ibeto Cement’s Nigercem plant in Nkalagu. The visit was part of an assessment to prepare Ibeto Cement for a listing on a stock exchange in the US, according to the This Day newspaper. Cletus Madubugwu Ibeto, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Ibeto Group said that Chinese contractors were due to work on upgrading the plant to a production capacity of 6000t/day with a 45MW waste heat recovery unit. In May 2018 Beta Cement signed an investment deal with US-based private equity firm Milost Global for US$850m.

China/US: China’s Ministry of Commerce has proposed placing retaliatory tariffs on products from the US, including cement. The list covers 5207 items and proposes adding import taxes of up to 25% on them. It includes clinker, white cement, limestone, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, refractory products and cement packaging machinery. The ministry said that the new tariffs will take effect at a date to be announced later on.