Sumter Cement Company Postpones Construction of Center Hill Plant

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Because of the decline in demand for cement, Sumter Cement Company LLC of Center Hill, Florida, a subsidiary of Votorantim Group (Sao Paulo, Brazil), has postponed the construction of a $229 million greenfield limestone quarry and cement plant in Center Hill. With the majority of the engineering completed, Sumter initiated site preparation during the summer of 2008 and expected the plant to be operational by early 2010. The current market condition forced the company to suspend construction and mothball the project site. If the market improves by the end of 2009, the company plans to restart construction at the end of 2010.

The engineering contract was awarded to Consultec Limited (Toronto, Ontario) with Sinoma International Engineering Company (Beijing, China) providing the technology for the 4,000-ton-per-day processing system. Once operational, the plant will produce 1.5 million tons per year of cement and employ 120 workers.

Suwannee American Cement LLC (Branford, Florida), a sister company of Sumter Cement, has also placed a $100 million expansion project on hold. Reported by Industrial Info in September 2005, Suwannee planned to construct a second kiln line to increase current cement production from 800,000 tons per year to 1.5 million tons per year. The expansion was pushed to the side for the development of the Center Hill plant. Now with the current economic downturn, the expansion project has been pushed even further back.

Although Sumter Cement's greenfield project has been delayed, the company's surrounding competitors are moving forward with development. Rinker Materials Corporation (West Palm Beach, Florida), now a subsidiary of Cemex SAB de CV (San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico), is undergoing a $150 million expansion at the Brooksville, Florida, cement plant. Rinker is installing a second kiln line to increase cement production from 900,000 tons per year to 2 million tons per year. American Cement Company LLC (Sumterville, Florida), a joint venture between Oldcastle Materials Incorporated (Washington, D.C.) and Trap Rock Industries Incorporated (Kingston, New Jersey), is also constructing a $125 million, 1 million-ton-per-year greenfield cement plant in Sumterville, Florida. Both projects began construction in the summer of 2007 and are expected to be complete by early 2009.

View Plant Profile - 1067266 1040628 1025488 1067243
View Project Report - 05002683 05002692 05001004 05002688

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.