Cement: another way stimulus money will flow to China (and Mexico, Canada, Korea...)

A large part of the stimulus bill will go towards "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects involving heavy construction. And, that's going to require a lot of cement. In 2007, it looks like the U.S. used about 110 million metric tons of portland cement, at the same time as importing almost 23 million metric tons of cement and clinker (Portland Cement Association, link):

About 83% of cement and clinker imported in 2007 came from five major countries: China, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea. Imports from China in 2007 declined to 7.5 million metric tons down 41.0% from 2006 levels

Despite operating at high efficiency, U.S. plants apparently can't meet demands, and there's a discussion of a cement shortage in 2005 here and here.

Your assignment: find out how much cement we'd have to import for all those stimulus-related projects, and calculate how much more China will be making off us.

Sun, 02/08/2009 - 16:28 · · Importance: 4