More Than $990 Million of Cement Projects Planned for Carolinas and Arizona in 2009

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Although cement consumption has been in decline because of less demand for residential construction, the U.S. cement manufacturing industry continues to build new plants and revamp existing antiquated equipment to grow capacity. Industrial Info, as part of its North American Metals & Minerals Database, is currently monitoring more than $1 billion of cement plant construction, expansions, additions and upgrades planned to kick off in 2009, as well as 87 planned maintenance shutdowns with an estimated total investment value of more than $160 million. While cement projects are currently planned in 35 states, the Carolinas and Arizona are the biggest winners for total investment in the cement manufacturing sector.

Construction of Titan America LLC's (Norfolk, Virginia) 2.3-million-ton-per-year grassroot cement plant in Castle Hayne, North Carolina, is scheduled to begin in August of this year. The plant has an estimated total investment value of $469 million and will be located adjacent to the company's ready-mix concrete facility on a 1,868-acre site. About 200 miles away, across the border in South Carolina, Lafarge North America Incorporated (Herndon, Virginia), a subsidiary of Lafarge S.A. (OTC:LFRGY) (Paris, France), is expanding its plant in Harleyville. Lafarage is modifying its existing kiln line to increase capacity from 1 million tons per year to 1.3 million tons per year and is adding another kiln line, bringing total plant production up to 2.6 million tons per year. Construction is scheduled in begin in October of next year and require a total investment value of about $300 million.

In Arizona, construction has already begun on Drake Cement LLC's (Scottsdale, Arizona) limestone quarry and cement plant in Paulsden, located about 20 miles from Prescott. Equipment installation will begin early next year. ABB Limited (NYSE:ABB) (Zurich, Switzerland) has been selected to provide the electrical power and automation systems for the plant. CalPortland (Glendora, California), formerly the California Portland Cement Company, is expanding the company's cement plant in Rillito, Arizona, to have a production capacity of 2 million tons per year. The combined estimated total investment value of the projects is $225 million.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, published in January 2008, the U.S. produced about 95.5 million tons of portland and masonry cement in 2007, ranking third in the world for overall production behind China, which produced 1.3 billion tons, and India, which produced 160 million tons in 2007. While the housing slowdown somewhat curtailed domestic use of cement, the report states that commercial and public construction were still fairly strong, as were continued projects on the nation's transportation infrastructure. The decline in cement use primarily affected cement importation into the country, which fell from 23% of consumed cement in 2006 to 17% in 2007. These high import figures support continued expansion within the domestic cement manufacturing industry.

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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.