Top 10 Cement Companies in the USA
In the present world cement industry is one of the largest and the most important industries. The United States contributes about 2.1% of the total cement produced all over the world. The USA comes in the fourth spot after China, India, and Vietnam in the production of cement. In the United States, most of the cement companies are subsidies by some multinational company which is from Europe and Central America.
Out of 50 States of the USA 34 states, there are cement manufacturing facilities. They are 96 integrated cement production plants and 8 plants are grinding plants. Usually, In a cement factory, 5 types of cement are produced; 1. Portland Cement, 2. White Cement, 3. Blended Cement, 4. Slag Cement and 5. Masonry Cement. However, Portland cement is the most used cement in the world so its production is also very high. So let’s take a look at some of the major players in the cement industry in the USA.
1. LafargeHolcim
LafargeHolcim is a Swiss multinational company who are specified in the manufacturing of building materials. It is one of the best cement companies in the US as well as in the whole world. The company is also known as Holcim Limited. The company is present in a total of 70 countries in the world. The company was established in the year 2015 when Lafarge and Holcim combined together and formed LafargeHolcim.
The headquarters of the company is located in Zug, Switzerland. There are a total of 2,315 places where the company’s operating sites are located throughout the whole globe. The products that the company produces are cement, aggregates, concrete, and all the other types of building materials. Jan Jenisch is the CEO of the company at present with Beat W. Hess being the Chairman.
In their company, there are a total of 70,000 employees all over the world. In the United States, LafargeHolcim has a total of 7000 employees and 13 cement-producing plants with a 22 million tonnes annual production capacity. There are three main production lines that produce cement, aggregates, ready-mix concrete, asphalt, and other materials. In the USA, the headquarter of the company is located in Chicago.
The company’s annual production capacity is around 380 million tonnes throughout the globe. Two major works that LafargeHolcim is part of in the United States are One World Trade Centre in New York and St. Croix Crossing Bridge. As per Forbes Global 2000, in 2020, the company ranked 280th spot in the list of the largest public company in the world.
2. CEMEX
Cemex is a building material manufacturing company that originally belongs to Mexico. It is a multinational company and is spread in more than 50 countries all over the globe. Cemex was ranked fifth, in 2020, in the manufacturing of building materials all over the world.
The company was founded by Lorenzo Zambrano Gutierrez in 1906. The headquarters of the company is located in Monterrey, Mexico. Rogelio Zambrano Lozano and Fernando A. González are the executive chairman and the CEO of the company respectively.
Building materials like – cement, aggregates, ready-mix concrete, fly ash, and slag cement are the main products of the company. CEMEX is spread over four continents and has 64 cement plants, 1,348 ready-mix concrete production plants, and many more minor plants and distribution hubs as well. Worldwide the annual cement production capacity of the company is about 93 million tonnes. The total number of employees in the company is more than 41000.
In the United States of America, CEMEX has a total of 10 cement plants and about 50 cement terminals which are located in very strategic locations. Moreover, there are 280 ready-mix concrete manufacturing facilities along with 50 more aggregate quarries as well.
Energy Management and sustainability is something that CEMEX USA is very regularly associated with because of its efforts towards it, and this has led the company to earn the U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year award for back to back three years in 2019, 2020, and 2021. The company is very popular in Orlando and Arizona for its work and the concert volcano at the Universal Theme park is a project constructed by them.
3. Lehigh Hanson(Heidelberg Cement)
The company was founded in 1897 as Lehigh Cement Company. The first plant of the company was set up in Ormrod, Pennsylvania. The company flourished in the early 1900s as during that time there was a huge demand for cement for construction. The company kept on becoming big by acquiring smaller factories and increasing the production of cement at that time.
At that time, the company became the largest producer of cement and building materials in North America. In 1977, HeidelbergCement, a German company acquired Lehigh Cement Company and made it the subsidiary of one of the biggest building materials manufacturing companies. At present time, the Lehigh and Hanson businesses in the USA are collectively known as Lehigh Hanson, Inc.
Therefore, HeidelbergCement is the parent company of Lehigh Hanson, Inc. The parent company’s current Chairman and CEO are Dr. Dominik von Achten. Production of cement, aggregates, concrete, and asphalt is the company’s main domain.
The ground as a whole has its presence in about 60 countries with an employee count of about 57000. The company has 139 operational cement plants, more than 1,500 ready-mix concrete production facilities, and above 600 aggregate quarries.
However, in the United States, Lehigh Hanson has 13 cement plants and many more production units which deal with all the other building materials like ready-mix concrete, asphalt, etc. No doubt, it is one of the best cement companies in the USA at the present time. Read Also: Top 15 Construction Companies in the U.S. as of 2022.
4. Buzzi Unicem
One of the leading companies in the production of cement in the United States is Buzzi Unicem. The company is a multinational company and was founded in Italy. In 1907, the company was formed as Fratelli Buzzi SpA by two brothers Pietro and Antonio Buzzi. After that, the company was reformed in 1999 when Buzzi Cementi took over Unicem and combined together to form Buzzi Unicem. The original headquarter of the company is located in Casale Monferrato, Italy.
The company has currently two co-CEOs Pietro Buzzi and Michele Buzzi and Sandro Buzzi is the chairman of the company. In 2004, the parent company made its presence in the USA by merging with RC Cement and Lone Star Industries. In the United States of America, the headquarters of the company is located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The company produces cement, concrete, and construction aggregates.
In the United States, there are a total of 8 cement production plants with a production capacity of 9 million tonnes of cement. Buzzi Unicem has a total of 34 cement terminals in the United States which helps in the distribution of its building construction products. The employee count of the company in the United States is 1,400.
The company provides masonry cement and ready-mix concrete to highway and airport paving firms, concrete block companies, and concrete product firms. Globally, the company operates in 14 countries( such as Italy, United States, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, etc.) and has a total of 10,000 employees.
5. Ash Grove Cement Company(CRH)
Ash Grove Cement Company is another company that ranks among the top in cement production in the United States. The company was founded in 1882 as Ash Grove White Lime Association in Ash Grove, Missouri. The company started cement production in 1908 at a manufacturing plant in Chanute, Kansas. Until 2018, the company was the largest cement company that was US-owned.
However, in 2018 CRH plc acquired the whole company whose headquarter is located in Ireland. Over the years the company has always been a major supplier in many infrastructure projects over the years. Portland Cement, fly ash cement, masonry cement, oil well cement, lime, aggregates, and soil stabilizer are the building materials that Ash Grove Cement Company produces in their manufacturing sites.
CRH, the parent company of the Ash Grove Cement Company is a multinational company and has its presence in 28 countries. The company is amongst the leading in cement manufacturing globally as well. There are about 77,000 employees of the parent company CRH in 3,235 locations that are currently under operation.
In 2021, 14.3 million tonnes of cement were produced by 12 Ash Grove cement manufacturing units in the USA. The Ash Grove Cement Company has 2,500 employees and there are 45 cement terminals throughout the USA. The company is an ISO-certified company as they adhere to the international standards for cement manufacturing which are set for the protection of our environment.
6. Martin Marietta Inc.
Martin Marietta Inc. is another American cement producer that has made its way into this list. The company was founded in 1993 in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. The company’s real origin dates back to 1939 when ‘Superior Stones’ company was founded which was an aggregate production factory.
After that, in 1959, Marietta Corporation bought the company and a year later merged with another company Glenn L. Martin Company which led to its name being changed to Martin Marietta Corporation. C. Nye is the CEO and the president of the company meanwhile Jim Nickolas is the CFO of the company.
The company manufactures building materials like – asphalt, cement, ready-mix, and aggregates cement-treated materials. Unlike the majority of companies in the list which are spread in so many countries around the globe, Martin Marietta is not so spread and is only available in Canada and the Caribbean island outside of the USA.
However, in the United States, the company is spread in 26 states. The company mainly provides its products for the construction of roads sidewalks and foundation work. According to 2019, the company had 8,714 employees.
7. Eagle Materials
Eagle Materials is another cement manufacturing company that is a fully USA-based company. The company is one of the major producers of building materials in the United States. In 1963, Centex Construction Company was founded and Eagle Materials was part of it with a different name which was Centex Construction Products.
However, on January 30, 2004, the company became independent and was renamed Eagle Materials. After becoming an independent company in May 2005, the announcement of a $65 million expansion of the LaSalle plant in Illinois was made. The Eagle Materials company kept on growing and in 2012, plants in Sugar Creek, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma were acquired from Lafarge for $446 million.
CRS Proppants LLC, a frac sand supplier was acquired in 2014 by the company for a sum of $225 million. Furthermore, another cement plant in Fairborn, Ohio was acquired by the company from Cemex for about $400 million. The building materials produced by the company are cement, concrete, construction aggregate, gypsum, wallboard, paperboard, and sand for hydraulic fracturing.
Currently, the CEO and President of Eagle Materials is David B. Powers. The company has 7 cement plants along with 17 cement distribution facilities. Moreover, there are many more facilities for the manufacturing of the other products like – 1 slag grinding plant, 5 gypsum wallboard units, 3 units for frac sand drying, and 6 locations for frac sand trans-load.
Over the year, it has been continuously upgrading and modernizing its facilities which have led to an increase in the production of different building materials. At present time, around 2,220 employees working for the company. The company has currently a total production capacity of 5 million tonnes of cement.
8. Argos Cement(Argo Group)
Argos Cement is a multinational building material manufacturing company that is originally from Colombia. The company is a part of a conglomerate known as Grupo Argos. Grupo Argos has invested largely in the cement and energy industries. The Agro group was founded in 1934 in Medellin, Colombia. Argos Cement has its operating locations in Colombia, the United States, Panama, Honduras, and the Caribbean.
The company has a total of 18 cement plants of which 11 are located in Colombia, 4 in the United States, and the rest are in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. The four northeastern cement plants in Colombia are the ones that are responsible for the export of cement all over the world.
There are a total of 134 concrete production facilities in the United States with an annual capacity of 8.9 million cubic meters per year. The total number of mixers in the USA is 1,350. The company acquired the operation of the Lafarge in the southeastern USA. Through this acquisition, the company got 2 cement plants, one clinker grinding, and 79 concrete facilities as well. Argos Cement has received a Green Star certificate from the National ready-mix concrete associates.
9. St. Marys Cement
One of the major cement companies in the United States, St. Marys Cement is originally from Ontario, Canada. The company was founded by John Lind and Alfred Rogers. It is the major producer of building materials in the great lakes region. St. Marys Cement has a total of 6 cement production plants in the USA and Canada out of which 4 are in the USA and 2 are in Canada.
The production capacity of the company is 5 million metric tonnes. The company is a part of Votorantim Cimentos. Votorantim Cimentos is among the largest producers of cement in the whole world. Some of the major buildings that were built with the cement from the St. Marys Cement company are CN Tower, Roy Thompson Hall, Maple Leaf Garden, etc.
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