Holderbank flexes its muscles in U.S., Latin America Holderbank's Canadian company St. Lawrence Cement will substantially boost its market position on the U.S. East Coast with the addition of two new facilities. The company plans to build a 2 million-mtpy cement plant in Greenport, N.Y. The permitting process, as well as the site engineering, for the new plant already has begun. Additionally, construction work is scheduled to begin before year's end in the Philadelphia-Camden, Pa. area on a $47.5 million slag grinding facility with an annual production capacity of 500,000 mt. Accessible by road, rail, and water, the new plant should be operational by early 2000. The grinding facilities are designed to allow a production increase of as much as 1 million mt if required.

Another Holderbank company, Apasco S.A. de C.V. , Mexico's second-largest cement company, will acquire a 20% stake in Cemento de El Salvador de C.V. (CESSA) for approximately $50 million. CESSA operates two cement plants in the vicinity of Metapan, about 120 km northeast of San Salvador. The El Ronco and Maya facilities together have an annual capacity of about 1.2 million mt. The company is currently building a new kiln line, which will bring CESSA's capacity to 1.65 million mt toward the end of 1999 even after the closure of three older kiln lines. In FY1997, CESSA posted a turnover of $72 million (on sales of more than 1 million mt of cement) with a net income of $10.5 million. This move will extend Apasco's natural market territory even further south in Central America, a strategy that began in 1997 when it purchased a stake in Cementos del Norte in Honduras. Holderbank's other Central American and Caribbean involvements include a joint venture in a Guatemalan import terminal, a majority shareholding in a cement grinding station in Nicaragua, and a stake in a grinding plant under construction in the Dominican Republic.

Holderbank and Suma Huaico SA, which has controlling interest in Argentina's second-largest cement producer Juan Minetti SA, signed a memorandum of understanding with regard to the formation of a strategic alliance. Under the terms of the memorandum, Holderbank received exclusive rights to hold contract negotiations for a sixty-day period, during which Holderbank plans to acquire a stake in Suma Huaico and eventually merge Corcemar and Minetti. Minetti's three cement plants-in Csrdoba, Mendoza, and Jujuy-have an annual capacity of 2.4 million mt. Via its Chilean Group company Cemento Polpaico SA, Holderbank raised its stake in Argentina's third-largest manufacturer, Corcemar SA, in July 1998, taking a majority shareholding position.

Ash Grove to builds new Kansas plant next to old Ash Grove Cement Co.'s board of directors has conditionally decided to construct a 1.5 million-tpy cement kiln at the site of its current facility in Chanute, Kan. The new plant is designed to meet the growing needs of the Midwest by expanding the annual production capacity of Ash Grove's Central Region to 3.5 million tons, up 1 million tons. The latest cement technology will be used in the new plant, including environmental controls. The board's decision is conditioned upon a resolution of issues related to electrical energy for the plant. Ash Grove's current 500,000-tpy facility at Chanute purchases electricity from a city-owned electrical utility. The new plant will need additional power, and there are a number of options available to satisfy those needs. Target date for completion of the new plant, which will be located directly next to the old one, is 2001. The existing Ash Grove kilns in Chanute will be decommissioned following completion of the new plant.