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Summer Months See Further Spread of Crippling Cement Shortages

Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Utah are the latest states to experience tight supplies of cement, the key binding ingredient for concrete, according to ongoing survey research by the Portland Cement Association.

Conditions have eased somewhat in the North Central states of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and North and South Dakota following the resolution of production troubles in plants in that region, and wet weather on the East Coast has brought at least temporary easing to Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

But advisories remain for those regions of the country that have relied significantly upon foreign imports to round out their supply of cement and also are continuing to have brisk home building activity.

Last year, imports provided 22.6% of the cement consumed in the U.S.

Over the short-term, supplies of cement from overseas are being constrained by strong global demand, especially from China. Freighters have also been in short supply and shipping charges have been high.

Stepping up the importation of cement from neighboring Mexico is probably the best short-term solution, but U.S. duties make that alternative prohibitively expensive. NAHB President Bobby Rayburn has urged Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans to suspend those tariffs and the association is also providing its members with information on using escalation clauses in home sales contracts to limit the financial damage of rising materials prices. (For more information, click here to see a related story in this issue of NBN.)

Over the longer term, domestic cement companies are aggressively modernizing and expanding their productive capacity, which is expected to increase by 11% by 2008, adding nearly 10 million tons of the material annually.

However, expansion of the cement industry in this country has been slow going because of zoning and other regulatory constraints that are likely to continue.

For more information, e-mail Dawn Faull or call her at 800-368-5242 x8362.

Is It Cement or Is It Concrete?

In conversation, "cement" and "concrete" are used interchangeably, but they are two distinct products.

Concrete is made up of cement, water, sand and gravel, or crushed stone. Concrete is the substance that's seen oozing from trucks' rotating, cylindrical mixers.

Cement is a mixture of limestone, calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron, gypsum and small amounts of other ingredients.

So, when you are walking down the sidewalk, you are walking on concrete.

Source: The Concrete Home Building Council of NAHB

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