US: Charah plans to open its second granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) grinding plant at the Watco's Greens Port Industrial Terminal (GPIT) in Texas. The unit is scheduled to be fully operational in the third quarter of 2019. The site is located on the Houston Ship Channel and is accessible by ship, truck, and rail. It will sell materials to concrete product manufacturers throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast region. No cost for the project has been disclosed.

"As one of the leading fly ash sales and marketing companies in the country, we are excited to open this facility that will increase access to high-quality secondary cementitious materials (SCM) in the Texas and Gulf Coast market, where availability has traditionally been inconsistent," said Scott Sewell, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Charah Solutions. He added that GBIT is an ‘ideal’ hub for Charah to use to serve its customers in Texas and the Gulf Coast.

GPIT will receive GBFS by ship and then use Charah Solutions' patented grinding technology to manufacture slag cement marketed under the brand MultiCem. The MultiCem slag cement is distributed throughout Charah Solutions' MultiSource materials network of more than 30 domestic sourcing locations that provide ready mix concrete producers and other customers SCMs, including fly ash and slag cement.

US: Slag cement shipments grew by 11% year-on-year to 3.45Mt in 2018 from 3.11Mt in 2017, according to data from the Slag Cement Association. This compares to 2.73Mt in 2016 and 2.43Mt in 2015.

India: JSW Cement has launched its ‘Comp Cem’ product in Goa. It is a blend of clinker, ground granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash, according to the United News Of India. The new product is intended to help the cement producer expand its distribution network in the southern and western parts of the country.

US: The United State Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that 16Mt of ferrous slag was produced in 2018. Blast furnace slag accounted for about 50% of the sales volume. Nearly 90% of this value was from sales of granulated slag. Steel slag accounted for almost all of the remainder. 2.2Mt of slag was imported. Slag was processed by about 25 companies servicing active iron and steel facilities or reprocessing old slag piles at about 140 processing plants in 30 states.

The USGS said that locally produced granulated blast furnace slag was in limited supply in 2018 due to granulation cooling only being available at two active US blast furnaces. Supply of basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel slag was similarly affected due to plant closures. As per 2017, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) sales volumes have failed to match increases set by the overall US cement industry since 2010 despite positive long term trends.