Cementos Portland Expanding U.S. Cement Interests

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Giant Cement Company Holding Incorporated (Summerville, South Carolina), a subsidiary of Cementos Portland SA (Pamplona, Spain), has awarded equipment and engineering contracts for a $100 million expansion at the company's cement manufacturing plant located in Harleyville, South Carolina.

Giant Cement selected cement equipment expert Polysius Corporation (Atlanta, Georgia), a subsidiary of Polysius AG (Beckum, Germany), to provide a full dry process kiln line including raw mill and finished product grinding. The new line will have a capacity of just over one million tons a year of clinker production and will increase current production capacity by 30% when the project is completed in late 2004. It replaces a less efficient wet process system, which includes four smaller kilns and four raw mills.

Watkins Engineers & Constructors (Tallahassee, Florida), a subsidiary of employee owned Dillingham Construction Corporation (Pleasanton, California), and Consultec Limited (Toronto, Ontario) are providing the civil, structural, and mechanical engineering for the project. Other engineering contracts, including electrical, will be awarded later. Construction bid packages are scheduled to be issued in February of 2003 and construction will kick-off in the spring of 2003. Completion of the expansion is expected in late 2004.

Cementos Portland has interests in three cement plants in the U.S. and five in Spain. The company is also in the process of expanding a cement plant in Sevilla, Spain.

Cementos Portland is experiencing record sales growth, which is fueling expansion of its U.S. cement production and distribution interests. "Industrialinfo.com is tracking over $200 million in capital expenditures in eight separate projects for the company at five different sites. The company is expanding all of its U.S. operations and is even studying a new cement distribution terminal in Canada," according to Joseph Govreau, Manager of Metals and Minerals for Industrialinfo.com. Cementos Portland has reported record sales growth of 240% over the last three years. This has spurred significant investment at the company's plants in Spain and the U.S.

Some U.S. cement manufacturers have noted reduced production and capital spending during the current market slump, but others like Cementos Portland are continuing with the expansion trend that has dominated the industry over the past several years. See the attached North American Cement Plant Map.