Cemex, Eagle Materials announce $665M Kosmos Cement asset deal

Sources: Cemex S.A.B. de C.V., Monterrey, Mexico; Eagle Materials Inc., Dallas; CP staff

The latest measure narrowing the Cemex USA portfolio to concrete, aggregate and cement operations in coastal or southern border states will see an asset sale involving Kentucky’s Kosmos Cement Co., seven distribution terminals plus raw material reserves to Dallas-based Eagle Materials Inc. As a 75/25 partner with Buzzi Unicem S.p.A. in Kosmos Cement, whose Louisville flagship has a 1.7-million ton/year capacity, Cemex will realize an estimated $499 million from the transaction. 

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ASTM C27 aligns new precast standard with AASHTO LRFD specs

Sources: ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa.; CP staff

ASTM Committee C27 on Precast Concrete Products is set to publish a standard (C1889) for designing drainage and utility infrastructure. The document essentially codifies requirements for precast structures from American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials load and resistance factor design (LRFD) specifications, and also addresses soil, hydrostatic, surcharge plus other loads.

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Logistics challenges temper fly ash consumption, CCP recycling rates

Sources: American Coal Ash Association, Farmington Hills, Mich.; CP staff

Supply dynamics in key regional markets, primarily linked to coal-fueled power plant closures, spurred an 11 percent year-over-year decline in fly ash consumption in concrete, according to the American Coal Ash Association’s (ACAA) just-released “Production and Use Survey” for 2018. Concrete-grade ash accounted for 12.5 million of the 59.4 million tons of coal combustion products (CCP) beneficially used last year; use of all CCP grades in cement production dropped to 6.4 million tons, off 26 percent from 2017 levels.

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EPD data-fueled embodied carbon tool debuts at Greenbuild

Sources: Carbon Leadership Forum, Seattle; CP staff

The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), a University of Washington College of Built Environments-hosted coalition of architecture, engineering and construction stakeholders, formally launched the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool in public beta version at the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild International Conference & Expo in Atlanta. Embodied carbon volumes reflect carbon dioxide emissions attributable to material or product processing, fabrication, delivery, and erection or placement. 

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Top engineer validates structural elements’ embodied carbon

Sources: Thornton Tomasetti, New York; CP staff

A global engineer’s seven-year survey of 600-plus buildings assesses materials, structural components and facility types with the highest embodied carbon, and cites a market-driven trend toward increased use of supplementary cementitious materials and recycled steel as the largest driver of a reduction in that metric. 

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SF Bay Area county approves premier low-carbon concrete code

Sources: Sierra Club California; CP staff

The Marin County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted an ordinance that adds a low-carbon concrete specification to the county’s building code, effective January 1, 2020. The new code applies to concrete mix designs for all private and public construction projects, and includes pathways for compliance with either reduced cement levels or lower-emission supplementary cementitious materials. 

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Incident rate in ready mixed production remains at decade trough

Sources: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Alexandria, Va.; CP staff

Just-released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018 workplace injury and illness data show a ready mixed concrete industry incident rate of 3.9 in 2018, unchanged from the prior year. Over the past decade, the injury- or illness-rooted lost work time benchmark among producers has ranged from the 2017-18 lows to 6.3 in 2014.

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LEED certification system eclipses 100K commercial building mark

Sources: U.S. Green Building Council, Washington, D.C.; CP staff

Auditors for the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program have registered and certified more than 100,000 commercial facilities across the globe. LEED certification is present pacing more than 2.6 million square feet of space daily, the group notes, signifying how project teams and owners are going “above and beyond to ensure a building is designed, constructed, operated and performing to the highest level of sustainability.”

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Concrete Products publisher adds Aggregates Manager

Sources: Semco Publishing, Denver; CP staff

The publisher of Concrete Products and Rock Products has acquired Aggregates Manager, a monthly title geared to crushed stone and sand & gravel producers, from Alabama-based Randall-Reilly. Effective the January 2020 issue, Semco Publishing will merge the magazine into Rock Products. Longtime Aggregates Manager Editor-in-Chief Therese Dunphy will become a monthly contributor and producer of the annual “Aggregates Atlas.”

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