The Portland Cement Association (PCA) Market Intelligence Group’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Ed Sullivan presented the association’s annual summer cement market outlook, predicting an increase in cement consumption over the next four years.
Cement consumption through June 2021 increased 7.4%, said Sullivan during a webinar presentation of the outlook. However, he noted that as residential construction strength has begun to erode, total growth rates for cement consumption has also edged down.
PCA forecasts the following annual cement consumption growth through 2025:
- 2021, 3.1%.
- 2022, 2.2%.
- 2023, 1.4%.
- 2024, 2.3%.
- 2025, 3.1%
Sullivan also stated that the cement industry is not immune to supply chain disruptions that are being seen in other industries. In fact, in a recent survey, PCA found 28 states were experiencing market tightness. The association predicts that supply chain hindrances, specifically labor force constraints and worker shortages, will begin to improve in the fourth quarter of 2021. Transitory inflation and production disruptions will ease and largely disappear in the second quarter of 2022, said Sullivan.
