Eagle Materials Inc (EXP)

[Democritus_of_Abdera]

Mustache Pozzolan Quarry ....

One of the exchanges in the question and answer session of the 2010 Q2 EXP CC of Oct 22 was:

<Q – Andrew Fineman>: Okay. I came in a couple of minutes late, but can you update us on your permitting for your permitting for pozzolan mine and can you say at all what that might contribute to your earnings next year?

<A – Craig Kesler>: We continue to – we have applied for our permits and we’ve received our air permit. And we have applied, this is on some BLM property for a permit to mine from the BLM. And believe that that is somewhere within the next six months that, when we went through the application we didn’t find anything unexpected and think it should just be a routine manner to get that permitted. And this is a big opportunity for Eagle to supply a pozzolanic fly ash type material for both Northern Nevada and Northern California is something that is a replacement material. That say is not a product of any type of combustion, so it is a very green product and should have very good margins for Eagle Materials.

I presume that the pozzolan mine in question is that located on 25 acres of Bureau of Land Management property near Fernley Nevada (i.e. near EXP’s Nevada Cement operation). The proposed open surface mining area abuts a section of the Fernley city Master Plan zoned high density residential (currently undeveloped). This has raised concerns about dust produced during transport of the shale and impacts upon local traffic patterns.

The Fernley city council approved a 25 yr permit allowing EXP operation of this mine on March 25, 2009 (see: http://www.aggregateresearch.com/article.aspx?ID=15883 ). The new pozzolan mine would provide a source of silica additive for limestone to be obtained from the Churchill and Relief Canyon qarries once the Fernley quarry is depleted. It would reduce the costs required for importation of fly ash and could be sold as a cement additive in and of itself. During the debate related to this action, Nevada Cement President Joe Sells stated that Nevada Cement’s current source of limestone, which is located in the Fernley hills, will run out in 7-10 years.

Sells emphasized that "This is not a pozzolan, it's a shale", presumably to mitigate fears about silicosis caused by pozzolan dust. Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzolan ,

A pozzolan is a material which, when combined with calcium hydroxide, exhibits cementitious properties.... At the basis of the Pozzolanic reaction stands a simple acid-base reaction between calcium hydroxide, also known as Portlandite, or (Ca(OH)2), and silicic acid (H4SiO4, or Si(OH)4). ... The product of general formula (CaH2SiO4 • 2 H2O ) formed is a calcium silicate hydrate, also abbreviated as CSH in cement chemist notation.

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Additional Sources:

http://pozzolanmine.weebly.com/

http://fernleynews.ning.com/group/fernleymine

http://m.rgj.com/news.jsp?key=181429