It’s cold and raining out this morning, it feels like fall has finally arrived and winter is close behind.  Thankfully, the first half of November has been nice so we could get some work done and concrete placed.  Hopefully, we will still have some good weather, but this time of year it’s hard to say.

           I’m sure this is a record year for ready mix concrete production.  Not bad for another cement shortage year.  Hopefully, soon the cement companies get their price up where they want them so there will be plenty of cement I just hope with the increases in price there will still be work to be done.  We had two price increases in 2005, the first time this has ever happened, and they were not small increases.  We had a $10 per ton increase in January and then another $5 per ton increases in July or August.  That’s $15 per ton increase for the year, which I think is a pretty healthy bump to take for us and also for our customers.  It’s not looking any better for 2006.  Right now they plan on the same increase, $10 for January 1^st and $5 per ton July 1^st.  This makes it awful hard for us to quote work and really hard on our customers trying to bid projects.  Maybe we can get through next year without another cement shortage.

It seems like there is a shortage of some kind all the time.  If it’s not cement, its fly ash.  But a couple of our fly ask suppliers are telling us they will be building storage, so hopefully, this will end the shortage of this material.

Now if we could just get something done with the price of diesel fuel and gas we should have it made.

It seems like we all have the same problem but we seem to work through them, and we will again next year.

It’s been a long, hard, sad season for all of us, and I want to thank everyone for pulling together and getting things done.  Please have a good, safe, holiday season and winter so everyone can come back for another season next spring.  Have a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.