The Record-Breaking Aggregates Industry

The publicly traded companies are out with their full-year 2023 financial reports and by all accounts it was a record-breaking year. The list goes on. While vibrant market conditions continue to drive performance for aggregates operations, there is no discounting the impact of the healthy price increases that companies are also reporting. Rock Products’ pricing guru, Barry Hudson of Price…

Read More

Mineral Commodities Update

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports U.S. mine and plant production data for 16 selected mineral commodities that are provided on a monthly (or quarterly) basis to the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System (FRS), for use in preparing its index of industrial production and the related capacity indexes and capacity utilization rates. In the aggregates industry we of course…

Read More

Welcome to 2024

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024. I hope this is a banner year for all of us and we see much success up ahead in the aggregates industry. Public highway, pavement and street construction is expected to grow by double digits for the second consecutive year, increasing 16% to $126 billion in 2024 from $108.6 billion in 2023, according…

Read More

The Year in Review

As the Grateful Dead sang, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” 2023 has been a year of surprises, excitement, progress and unexpected developments. Going into the first part of the year, I would have bet my last two-dollar bill we would see increased aggregates production in 2023. While the final numbers are not in, it is pretty apparent final…

Read More

A Look to the Horizon

In keeping with global efforts to address the adverse impact of climate change, the Buy Clean, Carbon Neutrality, LEED v4 and Net Zero movements have evolved with dizzying speed. This is a good place to note that Rock Products’ web portal “Construction Materials Carbon Management,” has become a go-to resource for information about these fast-growing efforts. While the cement industry…

Read More

Where Are We and Where Are We Headed?

Tracking aggregates production in the United States is no small feat, so kudos to U.S. Geological Survey Commodity Specialist Jason Willett, who diligently compiles that data quarterly for all of us to peruse. Data for the second quarter and first half of the year is now available. An estimated 662 million metric tons of total construction aggregates was produced and…

Read More

Welcome to The Aggregates Almanac, 2023 Edition

Welcome to the 2023 edition of the “Aggregates Almanac: The Ultimate Information Resource for Quarry Operators.” Published now for the seventh year in a row, feedback from our readers indicates that this publication is widely used and valued; and retained as a go-to information source. Rock Products’ Benchmark 2023 survey indicates that aggregates operators are highly interested in: Equipment upgrades.…

Read More

The Rock Products Road Show

The Rock Products Road Show – an “Economics + Equipment” informational session – rolled into Thompsonville, Mich., on July 21 for the Michigan Aggregates Association’s (MAA) summer meeting, held at the Crystal Mountain Resort. I was pleased to be the ringleader of the event, serving as “chief cook and bottle-washer,” as the saying goes.  The session was a textbook demonstration…

Read More

Let’s Talk Sand and Gravel

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released its updated “Top 100 Producers of Construction Sand and Gravel in the United States” list. According to USGS Commodity Specialist Jason Christopher Willett, the top 10 leading U.S. construction sand and gravel producing companies in 2021 were, in descending order of tonnage: CRH Americas Materials Inc.; Vulcan Materials Co.; Martin Marietta Materials Inc.; Lehigh…

Read More

The Price is Right

One of the key storylines in the aggregates industry over the past 12 months is the price of aggregates. Like almost every other construction material out there, the price of aggregates has gone up in keeping with the same inflationary pressures felt by other industries. This is very apparent in the recently released first-quarter reports of the industry’s publicly traded…

Read More
1 2 3 13