A new $600 million cement plant opened in Mitchell Tuesday, with claims that it has significantly lower CO2 emissions than similar plants.
Heidelberg Materials said the plant is the second largest cement plant in North America and one of the most technologically advanced and sustainable ever built.
Chris Ward, president and CEO of Heidelberg Materials North America, said that not only is the new plant more sustainable, but it is also more productive.
“This plant now will do three times the amount of cement and generate three times the amount of economic benefits that our legacy plant has,” he said. “We think this will really spur a lot of further investment as companies look to support this plant now for years to come.”
Heidelberg is adding more than 50 full-time jobs to the already 120 employed at the site.
The site will also leverage funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the feasibility of carbon capture, utilization, and storage at the site. The company aims to have those processes implemented by 2030.
“Lots of feasibility studies to still be done, both in terms of geology and in terms of plants,” he said. “But we'll be working together very closely with the Department of Energy to accumulate enough information for us to then get to a point we can make that investment happen.”
The plant can produce more than 2.4 million tons of cement a year and is expected to help address U.S. cement supply chain constraints.
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