Buffeted by soaring transportation costs, a residential market on the skids and shrinking reserves, aggregates producers have faced their share of challenges in recent months. But as they sidestep those difficulties thanks to voraciously hungry infrastructure and commercial markets, their next worry is how to keep those markets fed.
Difficulties in the aggregates arena drove an 8% price hike for the material over the past year. Aggregate producers say fuel costs are mostly to blame, but they also point to increased shipping distances as reserves are lost to expanding metropolitan areas. “Fuel costs have been incredibly detrimental to the market,” says Dave Chilicote, marketing director at New Enterprise Stone and Lime Co., New Enterprise, Pa., the largest privately held aggregate producer in the country. “It’s stopped a lot of jobs.”