Pit & Quarry, December 2010

Roundtable ConfeRenCe ty pessimistic about next year WILLIFORD Im from a smaller producer Were in the contracting side too and weve been Williford real flat the last 12 months as an aggregate producer Weve seen a little bit of an uptick from contracting and some of that was stimulus and the states finally let a few more projects than what weve had in the past couple of years Its been a slight increase Were concerned about next year too The states arent going to feel comfortable enough to keep putting money out there in projects So much reason were flat is the commercial and residential market is taking a big hit and all of the aggregate producers are basically in survival mode now HEINEMANN We are seeing a little bit of an increase in machinery sales You get the normal spill off of the inventories from what the dealers have Were starting to gradually fill that pipeline The pipeline was much smaller than what it was before The availability Heinemann of good used equipment has also diminished significantly As the business did turn down most of the producers tried to get by with what they had maintain it keep it going You can only do that for so long and then it comes to a point where you need it You need to pick up a new piece to keep things going NICELY Theyre saying the housing market is in for the long haul Its going to be seven years before it comes back to where it was So we now have to look to road construction instead SUZIO Theres such a large inventory in any market you go to for commercial residential Theres just that inventory of buildings It needs to be used up and filled up before any new can come CLARKE From our industry from our perspective the quarry industry is soft but the contractors end is still very long Weve had a very good year Definitely next year is a big concern whats going to happen if the moneys going to come through But Clarke for sure this year we got a lot more than what we predicted GARRISON Were kind of in the same boat We had a good year this year but it was largely due to a couple of big projects Now the trick is to show growth for next year Were forecasting flat or minimal growth The growth is certainly not going to come from the U S market As the U S markets going to be soft for a while you need to start looking out in Latin America and other markets where there is infrastructure spending going on The North American market next year for us were definitely forecasting flat SWANK For us the aggregate side has been slow last year and the end of this year as well In the last two or three months we started seeing an increase in Appalachian regions as well as the mid Atlantic which we were surprised about We didnt expect that We project next year to be flat not up anymore than this year Swank MATSON George Reddin of FMI Corp was saying you get to a point where this is the new norm How are you going to grow You can only do so much organic growth Were looking at acquisitions to hold on to grow our bottom line Thats one of the ways to combat it The other is to continue to look to manufacturers to help us out with technology new advancements to continue to lower our costs Thats how we plan to combat it HINGST We opened our business during the recession it just kind of happened that way We stuck our toe in the water and the bottom dropped out so it was steam on We operate the only way we know how with a tight belt during recession times so we continue to do that SUZIO We plan on being very involved with our national associations to get a fully funded highway bill to get more involved in the government affairs aspect of things We all know Washington is broke right now in more than one way We need a highway funding bill and we need a way to fund it Thats going to put people back to work When they go back to work they spend money When they spend money everybody benefits RICHESSON Do you expect a near half trillion dollar multi year highway funding bill to be passed by the end of 2010 or is it time to pursue alternative options BRAU Obviously infrastructure is extremely important for us And for us to keep up with the global market if we dont invest in our infrastructure well be falling behind WILLIFORD We feel theres a six tonine month window after the November elections to basically get a highway bill passed On a personal note meeting with my congressman in Memphis last week he said he doesnt believe that theres going to be anymore six year bills in the future There will be more twoand four year bills SUZIO Everyones in a wait and see mode There are a few disturbing things for me One of them is with all of these candidates running on no new taxes 30 PIT QUARRY December 2010 www pitandquarry com