Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua Advances U.S. Cement Plant Projects

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). GCC Cemento SA de CV (Chihuahua, Mexico), a subsidiary of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua SA de CV (Monterrey, Mexico), is advancing two major projects at its U.S. cement manufacturing operations. These plans come during a 12-month slow down in cement sales and imports for the company. After years of growth, including the acquisition of U.S. based cement manufacturing capacity, GCC is looking at expansion of those acquisitions. GCC acquired New Mexico based, Rio Grande Portland Cement Corporation in the late 90's and more recently acquired South Dakota based, Dakota Cement in 2001.

GCC Dakota LLC (Rapid City, South Dakota) is moving forward with a two-phased upgrade (PEC 32000110) of a dry process rotary kiln line at its one million tons per year cement plant located in Rapid City, South Dakota (Plant 1014800). The company also operates two smaller wet process kilns at the site. Plans are to eventually phase out the two wet process kilns, but business has been so good that it hasn't been necessary, yet. Three years ago GCC acquired the Rapid City plant and several distribution terminals from the state of South Dakota.

Kier/CCC USA (Salt Lake City, Utah), a joint venture between Kier International Limited (Bedfordshire, UK) and CCC Group, Incorporated (San Antonio, Texas), is performing the construction on the project. The first phase, an upgrade to the preheater tower, will be complete by April of 2004. The second phase is scheduled to take place during a six-week shutdown beginning in November of 2004.

In Colorado, GCC recently received an extension on an operating air emissions permit from the state of Colorado for its proposed Red Rock cement plant (PEC 41000213). This extension allowed the company to pursue the improvements at the South Dakota plant and push back the Red Rock project one to two years, as the company monitors the market. The $155 million Red Rock project is to be constructed in Pueblo, Colorado. Construction on the project most likely wouldn't start until the spring of 2005, at the earliest.

Industrialinfo.com has been tracking this project since 1997 as part of its North American Industrial Database, when previous owner Rio Grande Portland Cement Corporation initiated a study for a new plant to serve the Southwest market.

Most of the engineering for these projects is being handled out of GCC's Chihuahua office.

GCC also operates a cement plant in Tijeras, New Mexico (Plant 1523331).