IIR Metals & Minerals News Week in Review, July 27-31, 2015

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Here are the news headlines gathered by Industrial Info during the past week.

Cement News
The big get bigger. HeidelbergCement (Heidelberg, Germany) announced it had started the process to acquire Italcementi, which would create the world's second-largest cement producer. The combined operations of the two companies would produce about 200 million tons of cement per year. In comparison, the newly merged LafargeHolcim Limited (Jona, Switzerland), the No. 1 cement producer in the world, has manufacturing capacity of about 395.5 million tons per year.

In a related transaction, Lafarge has sold $450 million worth of assets, including a cement plant in Davenport, Iowa, and cement terminals to Summit Materials (Denver, Colorado).

Steel News
CMC Steel, a subsidiary of Commercial Metals Company (NYSE:CMC) (Irving, Texas), announced site selection for a new steel micro-mill in Oklahoma. The mill will have a similar layout to the company's mill in Mesa, Arizona. The 300,000-ton-per-year Mesa mill was conceived in 2006 and began operations in late 2009.

U.S. Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) has said it will idle the #8 Blast Furnace at its Fairfield Steel Works in Alabama. The blast furnace was constructed in 1978. The company is constructing a new, $230 million electric arc furnace that will provide hot metal for the steel works when it is brought online late next year.

Navistar International (NYSE:NAV) (Lisle, Illinois) has shuttered its Indianapolis Foundry, which had been in operation since the 1930s.

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