The U.S. Geological Survey reported total shipments for June, and the numbers are lukewarm.
Total shipments of portland and blended cement, including imports, in the United States and Puerto Rico in June 2025 were an estimated 9.16 million metric tons (Mt), a slight decrease from shipments in June 2024. Shipments for the year through June totaled an estimated 47.0 Mt, a 5.3% decrease from those for the same period in 2024.
Construction materials economist Ed Sullivan’s just-released “Baseline” forecast is a likely scenario. It reflects significant tariff-driven inflation during 2025, a slowdown in consumer spending, a weaker job market and a Federal Reserve that is slow to cut interest rates.
For construction and cement activity, this translates into a continuation of the soft conditions that have characterized the first half of 2025. This period of malaise is expected to continue through much of the first half of 2026, which translates into another significant decline in cement volume for 2025.
Recovery of the residential market requires significant declines in mortgage rates. In turn, a significant recovery will not materialize until mortgage rates retreat to the 5% to 5.5% level. This must materialize in the context of relatively healthy labor markets. Both ingredients are required and are expected to materialize by mid-2026, Sullivan stated.
Allen-Villere Partners CEO Pierre Villere kicked off the recent AggNexus Digital Innovation Conference on an upbeat note, expressing confidence that aggregates, concrete and major construction segments “will thrive for the foreseeable future. Material margins will continue to expand as pricing strength continues in the industry,” he stated. The prospect for a slowing economy exists, he added, “but we don’t believe it.”
Villere, the leading management consultant and M&A specialist in construction materials industry as well as a Cement Optimized columnist, also noted in his latest Pulse Report, “My position hasn’t changed since my commentary last quarter: given the uncertainty and chaos in the overall economy, I am asked more often now about my outlook for the construction economy, and I remain positive. Maybe the next several months will be difficult, but the chaos and uncertainty will come to an end, probably well before the mid-term elections, which are little more than a year away. If I’m right, you see the headlights pointing uphill again as the industry gets past the current downdraft.”
