Pit & Quarry, February 2013

RoundTable ConfeRenCe WEISIGER Strictly for our business what we are seeing now is excess capacity so there are no new plants being built There are very few opportunities to put equipment into a new facility Most of what we do is replacement business But I think we are hopeful and we see maybe in the next couple years equipment having to be replaced So we are cautiously optimistic about Heffley Weisiger that on the aggregate side MCLAUGHLIN As a manufacturer we saw manufacturing boom in 2008 and the last four or five years have been downhill But we went overseas to keep our business profitable And 2012 was a good year in North America for us and we think 2013 will be a continuation of 2012 We have seen pockets where producers are double shifting plants Weve Mclaughlin also got customers that are 50 percent down for this year But the bottom line is we are pretty optimistic about North America WILLIFORD Weve downsized the number of operations that we have now and weve actually seen about a 30 to 35 percent increase in the past 12 months And most of that was due to our sister company thats in the asphalt business quite a bit of their work increased We are still not seeing it on the ready mix side Ready mix used to consume about 70 percent of our product Now theyre consuming about 40 to 45 percent A lot of whats affecting us is that the housing market in our area like a lot of areas around the United States was over built We are starting to see some new startup houses going in so we think it will improve HEFFLEY We continue to see companies seeking new ways of doing things whether it might be reevaluating how they approach their markets and doing things differently and maybe that means getting new equipment or just reorganizing the equipment that they have or looking for new niches in materials whether its going into the frac sand business more Weve seen an explosion with that how long that will last we dont know This is an industry thats been around for a long time and it will continue to be And I think there are a lot of bright people in it that will continue to seek opportunities REDDIN It sounds like anybody who has access to markets beyond our borders that diversification came in real handy I think there is going to be improvement in the economy And our firm is looking again at residential we are looking at a doubling in the next four years which would yield an average compound annual growth rate on single family residential of 18 percent a year But it still puts you at a very low level So I think we have two discussions in one I think weve got an economy discussion and then I think weve got housing and the impact to manufacturing and how does that impact the producers And I think the economic picture might be better in the short term Reddin than the impact for the producers that theres a lag because of some of the issues were talking about CLARKE Thats also what you can say about being diverse THE POWER OF VIBRATION www flexmat com 28 PIT QUARRY February 2013 www pitandquarry com