Year: 2011

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice Department announced recently that Houston-based Cemex, Inc., one of the largest producers of portland cement in the United States, has agreed to pay a $1.4 million penalty for Clean Air Act violations at its cement plant in Fairborn, Ohio, acquired by Cemex in 2000. In addition to the penalty, Cemex…

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Cemex Construction Materials Florida LLC has applied to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for a short-term trial testing of a list of alternative products the company wants to burn to operate the plant’s cement kilns, including plastic agricultural film; agricultural waste, such as animal bedding, citrus peels and rice hulls; carpet-derived fuel; woody biomass; roofing shingles; paper; and…

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Anglo American plc and Lafarge SA announce their agreement to combine their cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, asphalt and contracting businesses in the United Kingdom, comprising Tarmac Limited and Lafarge Cement UK, Lafarge Aggregates and Concrete UK.

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A decision on whether a new $400 million cement plant will be built near Weston is now not expected until the second half of this year. Holcim NZ, which has resource consents to build the plant, had hoped its parent company in Switzerland, Holcim Ltd, would make a decision before the middle of the year. However, Holcim NZ has now…

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CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V., of Monterrey, Mexico, announced in mid-February the launch of its newly  redesigned corporate website: www.cemex.com, which incorporates state-of-the-art web technology, and most importantly, aims to significantly improve the user experience of the many Cemex stakeholders visiting the site. The new site features new content and enhanced use of multimedia applications such as videos, photos, and interactive…

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A story reported on InsuranceJournal.com said that a federal judge ruled that a barge that landed on top of several homes in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans did not cause the floodwall to break during Hurricane Katrina. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. of New Orleans exonerated Lafarge North America Inc. of negligence for a series of decisions…

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Mulan, Italy-based cement group Buzzi Unicem SpA predicted a deeper-than-expected fall in 2010 core profit on Tuesday, but said signs of improvement could continue in 2011. Italy’s No. 2 cement producer said it saw 2010 recurring earnings before (EBITDA) of around US $546 million. 2010 revenues fell 0.9%, broadly in line with expectations. Buzzi operates in Italy, central and eastern…

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Mexico’s Cemex, S.A.B. de C.V., announced that consolidated net sales increased 1% in the fourth quarter of 2010 to US$3.5 billion and decreased 3% for the full year to US$14.1 billion, versus the comparable periods in 2009. Operating EBITDA increased 2% in the fourth quarter of 2010 to US$482 million and decreased 13% for the full year to US$2.3 billion.

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The U.S. Green Building Council is in the process of revising its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) programs. Among the comments submitted by the Portland Cement Association, prior to the January 14 deadline, were those addressing functional resilience.

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Environmentalists’ latest weapon to undermine the use of coal in power generation follows a curious trajectory: The U.S. Green Building Council’s public comment process for LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] rating system revisions. A group comprising federal and state environmental and law enforcement agency officials, PEER contends that construction-grade fly ash—the most widely used coal combustion residual (CCR)—should…

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