Pit & Quarry, October 2018

CEMEX ADDS A BLUE STAR MATERIALS QUARRY EXPANDS ITS REACH WITHIN TEXAS emex USA acquired Blue Star Materials turnkey fully operational aggregate quarry in Chico Texas C The acquisition expands and strengthens Cemexs aggregate network in the Dallas Fort Worth area The 122 acre site and quarry plant is located approximately 45 miles northwest of Fort Worth and has more than 25 years of quality limestone reserves according to the company The Dallas Fort Worth area is expected to grow exponentially over the next 30 years says Joel Galassini regional president of the Texas and New Mexico region for Cemex USA By acquiring a quarry thats currently operational we can start contributing to that growth almost immediately and bring Cemexs strong network along with our expertise to projects in the Metroplex The addition of the Chico Texas quarry will add to Cemexs existing Balcones Quarry in New Braunfels Texas which was recently ranked as the top crushed stone operation in the nation by volume according to the U S Geological Survey USGS Cemexs Texas network also includes one centrally located cement plant five aggregate operations close to 10 distribution terminals and nearly 30 ready mix plants In addition Cemex was recently ranked as a top sand and gravel producer by USGS UPDATE AGGREGATE FORECAST By David Chereb Aggregate demand economy trending upward E nergy and manufacturing will be the two drivers of the U S economy during the next two years These two sectors have not been the leaders for many years The U S is now the worlds leading oil producer and is rapidly regaining its position as the leading manufacturing nation Many factors have produced this but the most important is a change in policies from Washington It reminds me of President John F Kennedys support of the Apollo space program most thought it couldnt be done Because of these policy changes the U S is back in the game of business Other countries will react and going forward a fight for dominance will keep everyone working hard both here and overseas The beneficiary of all of this will be the consumer who will get great products from many places As an aside the trade skirmish will not turn into a long trade war We will move closer to a tariff free world by 2020 As a result of a rapidly growing U S economy construction activity will remain Dr David Chereb has many years of experience forecasting construction materials and his webbased forecasting models have captured every major turning point in materials demand for more than 15 years Chereb received his Ph D in economics from the University of Southern California He can be reached at david chereb@ sc marketanalytics com strong with nonbuilding construction leading the way The private segments both residential and nonresidential will grow a little but these interest rate sensitive segments will have to deal with higher financing costs which is the price of a rapidly growing economy With state and local governments in better budget positions nonbuilding will be the plow horse pulling aggregate demand upward for the next two to five years Regionally most of the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt states will do well States that will lag behind are the farm states high tax states and states with large unfunded pension liabilities U S Aggregate Demand 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Nonbuilding Nonresidential Residential Source S C Market Analytics U S Aggregate Demand billions of metric tons 2014 2015 2016 2017est 2018est 2019est 2020est 140 120 100 080 060 040 Billions of metric tons RESIDENTIAL 048 052 057 057 058 054 055 NON RESIDENTIAL 065 069 072 070 072 070 073 NON BUILDING 106 105 103 100 109 117 126 TOTAL 219 226 232 227 239 241 254 Yr Yr Ch 68 32 27 22 53 09 54 Source S C Market Analytics 28 PIT QUARRY October 2018 pitandquarry com