Displaying items by tag: US

Canada/US: TMS International’s sites in the US and Canada have received a total of 48 safety awards from the National Slag Association (NSA) for 2018. The NSA Safety Awards recognise superior performance as measured against occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) recordable injury rates. The awards were presented to the company during the NSA’s annual meeting in mid-September 2019.

US: Cemex USA has unveiled a new cement which uses blast furnace slag as a binder. The company has stated that the product, called CemSlag, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and extends the workability of concrete compared with normal cement.

US: Shawn M Garvin, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), has issued a Secretary’s Order granting an air quality construction permit for Walan Specialty Construction Products to build a slag grinding plant at Wilmington in Delaware. Walan, also known locally as Penn Mag, is required to use best available control technology (BACT) to control particulate emissions from the drying and grinding operations and to limit truck activity at the site to paved surfaces. The permit has approved a throughput limit of 150,000t/yr of slag, a reduction of 43% compared to the original application.

US: Vallejo Marine Terminal (VMT) has decided not to appeal against the Vallejo City Council’s decision in 2017 to deny it planning permission to build a marine terminal. VMT and Orcem Americas were planning to build a marine terminal and a slag cement grinding plant, according to the Vallejo Times Herald newspaper in Vallejo, California. Orcem Americas have not commented on the situation but the lack of an import terminal may make building a cement plant unviable, although the site does have rail and road links.

US: Councillors at the Vallejo City Council in California are preparing to make a decision on Orcem Americas’ slag cement plant project at the end of May 2019. The council has released a new draft Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), according to the Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper. However, staff said the document is not ready to be presented to the council for certification and possible project approval under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) due to a lack of information and cooperation from the applicants for the draft status of the report. Planning permission for the slag grinding plant and marine terminal was refused in early 2017.

US: Harsco’s Metals & Minerals division has expanded an agreement with Egyptian Steel, a manufacturer of rebar and wire rods in the Middle East and North Africa. Under the terms of this expanded agreement, Harsco will provide scrap and slag management, material handling, and metal recovery services at Egyptian Steel’s Beni Suef plant. Harsco has provided similar services to Egyptian Steel’s Al Ain Al Sokhna site since late 2017.

“This contract further strengthens our market-leading role in the Africa and Middle East steel markets, where Harsco has been providing environmental services for well over two decades,” said Russ Mitchell, the Chief Operating Officer of Harsco Metals & Minerals.

US: Charah plans to open its second granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) grinding plant at the Watco's Greens Port Industrial Terminal (GPIT) in Texas. The unit is scheduled to be fully operational in the third quarter of 2019. The site is located on the Houston Ship Channel and is accessible by ship, truck, and rail. It will sell materials to concrete product manufacturers throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast region. No cost for the project has been disclosed.

"As one of the leading fly ash sales and marketing companies in the country, we are excited to open this facility that will increase access to high-quality secondary cementitious materials (SCM) in the Texas and Gulf Coast market, where availability has traditionally been inconsistent," said Scott Sewell, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Charah Solutions. He added that GBIT is an ‘ideal’ hub for Charah to use to serve its customers in Texas and the Gulf Coast.

GPIT will receive GBFS by ship and then use Charah Solutions' patented grinding technology to manufacture slag cement marketed under the brand MultiCem. The MultiCem slag cement is distributed throughout Charah Solutions' MultiSource materials network of more than 30 domestic sourcing locations that provide ready mix concrete producers and other customers SCMs, including fly ash and slag cement.

US: Slag cement shipments grew by 11% year-on-year to 3.45Mt in 2018 from 3.11Mt in 2017, according to data from the Slag Cement Association. This compares to 2.73Mt in 2016 and 2.43Mt in 2015.

US: The United State Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that 16Mt of ferrous slag was produced in 2018. Blast furnace slag accounted for about 50% of the sales volume. Nearly 90% of this value was from sales of granulated slag. Steel slag accounted for almost all of the remainder. 2.2Mt of slag was imported. Slag was processed by about 25 companies servicing active iron and steel facilities or reprocessing old slag piles at about 140 processing plants in 30 states.

The USGS said that locally produced granulated blast furnace slag was in limited supply in 2018 due to granulation cooling only being available at two active US blast furnaces. Supply of basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel slag was similarly affected due to plant closures. As per 2017, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) sales volumes have failed to match increases set by the overall US cement industry since 2010 despite positive long term trends.

US: Harsco’s sales revenue from its Metals & Minerals division rose by 5.7% year-on-year to US$1.07bn in 2018 from US$1.01bn in 2017. Its operating income increased by 18% to US$121m from US$102m. It said that its Metals & Minerals' revenues were positively impacted by higher customer steel output and related demand for mill services, new contracts, higher commodity prices, increased applied products sales and the acquisition of Altek Group. Overall, the group’s revenue and operating income rose in 2018.

“2018 marked another year of successful execution against our priorities and we again delivered meaningful financial improvements,” said chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Nick Grasberger.