Speed plant likely to close after Mitchell expansion

The Speed plant currently employs around 170 people, around 100 of which are likely to lose their jobs when the Mitchell plant expansion comes online. Half of these could be relocated to the Mitchell plant, whose capacity will expand from 0.7 million tpy to 2.8 million tpy.

Construction of the new Mitchell plant will also generate around 1000 construction jobs.

For those that do not relocate, “we are going to treat them fairly and offer different kinds of transition benefits and assistance as far as finding a new job somewhere else,” Jeff Sieg, Director of Corporate Communications at Lehigh Hanson told local news site, Wave3.com.

The more-then US$600 million investment in the Mitchell plant will allow the company to reduce its energy usage and emissions per tonne of cement produced through the use of modern cement production technology.

"It will give us three times the capacity of the current Mitchell plant," Sieg continued. "And we'll be able to produce it in a much more efficient, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable way. So it's a huge economic impact to the state of Indiana and the city of Mitchell."

The project is the largest expansion and modernisation undertaken by Lehigh Hanson in North America. The company is a subsidiary of global building materials group, HeidelbergCement, and operates 15 cement and grinding plants, as well as 53 cement terminals in the US.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/the-americas/19072018/speed-plant-likely-to-close-after-mitchell-expansion/