Denver-based full-service engineering, construction, and operations firm CH2M HILL has secured a contract for FL Smidth, Inc. to provide facility and infrastructure design services for Holcim (US) Inc.'s $905 million Ste. Genevieve greenfield plant in Missouri.

The new plant will be built on 3,900 acres along the Mississippi River and will feature the largest single clinker production line anywhere in the world with a capacity of 12,000 mtpd of clinker and 4 million mtpy of finished cement. The facility will use the most advanced technology and equipment, making it one of the lowest-emission cement plants in the world.

CH2M HILL is providing structural, architectural, electrical, and mechanical design for the plant, whose focal point will be the pyroprocess system consisting of an ILC 5-stage preheater (more than 400 ft high) and a 6.6-meter-diam, 93-meter-long kiln. Two vertical roller mills will be utilized for raw grinding and four OK vertical roller mills will be provided for cement grinding. Finished cement will be shipped by barge, rail, and truck. Commissioning for the plant is scheduled for 2009, with the design completed by summer 2007.

In addition, contractors completed work late in December on the first two silos for the Ste. Genevieve plant. MC Industrial and joint-venture partner T.E. Iberson slip-formed the twin, 60-ft-diam, 275-ft.-tall silos in just 16 days. The raw material storage silos are the first of 13 to be built in the next 18 months. In February, MC Industrial will begin work on two 150-ft-diam, 207-ft-tall clinker silos, which the contractor says will be the largest in the world. Following that will be the cement storage silos — eight 79-ft-diam, 275-ft-tall structures with the capacity to store 260,000 tons of powder. The 13th and last silo will be a 40-ft-diam reject silo. In all, the contractor will place more than 90,000 cu yd of concrete for the silos, which are scheduled for completion in February 2008.