portland cement – Page 6 – Concrete Products

Graniterock adds carbon footprint savings calculator to iPhone app

June 9, 2014 CP Staff

Sources: Graniterock, Watsonville, Calif.; CP staff

Graniterock’s Construction Calculators Version 4.2 app enables architects and contractors to gauge carbon dioxide emissions reduction when using supplementary cementitious materials to offset portland cement in concrete mix designs. The just-released update builds on one of the industry’s first mobile device-geared software products, launched in 2011, for estimating a project’s ready mixed and aggregate requirements.

PRODUCERS – June 2014

June 5, 2014 CP Staff

MMC Materials, Inc. and sister company Bayou Concrete, LLC, are the latest ready mixed concrete producers to join the Preferred Producer distribution network of CeraTech USA, an Alexandria, Va., developer of a fly ash-based binder formulated to match portland cement alternatives.

A city hall design no one will fight

May 1, 2014 CP Staff

Bethlehem, Pa.-based Spillman Farmer Architects (SFA) and the City of Easton broke ground for the new three-story, 138,800-sq.-ft. Transportation Center Garage.

Mindful of the Lehigh Valley’s deep roots in portland cement milling, project principals did not need to labor over the material of choice to support and clad the new Easton City Hall and Transportation Center, rising in the fittingly named eastern Pennsylvania town of 27,000.

Northeast Newcomer

March 10, 2014 CP Staff

Convening in Montreal are (from left) McInnis Cement Senior Vice President, Commercial & Logistics Jim Braselton, Chief Executive Officer Christian Gagnon and Senior Vice President, Operations Gaetan Vezina.

McInnis Cement orients greenfield plant to broad Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast market footprint

By Don Marsh

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois and business leaders convened in late-January to outline a financial structure for an export-driven start up, McInnis Cement. The company will commence spring 2014 construction of a “shovel ready,” $1 billion project: An advanced portland cement mill with ultimate annual capacity upward of 2.5 million tonnes (2.75 million tons), plus marine terminal equipped to load 2,000 tonnes (2,200 tons)/hour.

To reap efficiency or sow fragmentation

March 10, 2014 Don Marsh

Impending ownership changes of two concrete and cement businesses, one each side of the Atlantic, remind us how reasonably regulated free markets overwhelmingly trump those hamstrung by heavy-handed government agencies. Consider the investor-sanctioned Martin Marietta Materials–Texas Industries merger versus the British government-ordered creation of a portland cement, GGBF slag and ready mixed producer from the sale of existing players’ assets. The driving forces behind the transactions are the embrace or rejection of realities of a market rewarding efficiency versus fragmentation.

PLYCEM ADDS FIBER CEMENT SIDING IN SAINT-GOBAIN DEAL

February 28, 2014 CP Staff

Paris-based Saint-Gobain anticipates a firstquarter 2014 closing on the sale of its RoaringRiver, N.C.; Terre Haute, Ind.; and, WhiteCity, Ore., fiber cement siding facilities toAlpharetta, Ga.-based Plycem USA Inc., whichdistributes fiber cement trim sourced from aCosta Rica plant.

FHWA evolves Highway Materials Engineering Course

January 6, 2014 CP Staff

The Federal Highway Administration is extensively revising its Highway Materials Engineering Academy, which for 20 years has prepared transportation agency staff to develop specifications and guidance; make effective project acceptance decisions; and, design, construct and maintain assets to achieve long service life.