Lime Manufacturing (U.S.) — NAICS 32741

A short rollup primer for public- and private-market readers.

This page is a pass-through. NAICS 32741 is a five-digit "NAICS industry" that contains exactly one six-digit child, 327410 — Lime Manufacturing. At this level the two codes describe the same set of businesses and the same federal statistics. This page gives the level's own ground-truth figures and orients you; for the full analysis — economics, demand drivers, named companies, regulation, consolidation, and how to invest — read the child primer, 327410 Lime Manufacturing.

1. Overview

Lime is one of the oldest industrial chemicals. Producers heat high-purity limestone (calcium carbonate) in kilns at roughly 1,000 °C to drive off carbon dioxide (CO₂), yielding quicklime (calcium oxide) and, with water, hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide). Steelmakers, power plants, water utilities, road builders, and chemical plants buy it in bulk. The value is created in the kiln — this is a manufacturing business, distinct from quarrying crushed stone or grinding raw "ag lime" [1][13].

For an investor, lime is a regional, capital-intensive, commodity-processing business with unusual pricing power: the product is heavy and cheap per ton, so freight limits how far it travels, turning most plants into local near-monopolies [16]. The economics that follow from that fact are exceptional — the one U.S.-listed pure-play runs gross margins near 49% [8]. Because 32741 has a single child, everything true of NAICS 327410 is true of this level.

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 NAICS structure nests lime as follows:

• 32741 — Lime Manufacturing (this page, a NAICS industry)
• 327410 — Lime Manufacturing (the sole national industry beneath it)

When a five-digit NAICS industry is not subdivided into multiple specializations, the classification system repeats it once at the six-digit level. There is only one line of business here — establishments that make lime (quicklime, hydrated lime, and dead-burned dolomite) by calcination, the kiln-firing step [1]. So 32741 and 327410 cover the identical firms, plants, output, and statistics. There is no aggregation to do and no second child to compare against; the rollup is the child. Read 327410 for the complete treatment.

Where the boundary sits. Calcination is the whole test. Digging and crushing stone is crushed and broken limestone mining (NAICS 212312); grinding raw limestone into agricultural lime is ground or treated mineral manufacturing (NAICS 327992); cement (327310) and gypsum products (327420) are related building chemistry but different processes [1]. This matters when sizing the market: "lime," limestone, and cement are not interchangeable, and commercial market reports that combine them materially overstate the addressable market for actual kiln-produced lime [13].

3. How big it is (this level's rollup figures)

Because there is one child, the level's figures and the child's figures are the same numbers. Two federal yardsticks describe them, and they measure different things — a production view and a business view.

Production view (USGS, 2025 estimate). U.S. producers made about 15 million tons of quicklime and hydrated lime worth roughly $4.0 billion — an average of about $265 per ton — from 24 companies running 70 primary (kiln) plants in 30 states, plus 11 hydrating plants. The five leading companies made about 80% of output; the top producing states were Alabama, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas [1].

Price and volume have moved in opposite directions. USGS's average plant value for quicklime rose from $149.90 per metric ton in 2022 to $261.40 in 2024 and an estimated $260 in 2025; hydrated lime went from $179.10 to $274.20 and an estimated $280. Over the same span production fell, from 16.7 million metric tons in 2022 to 15.0 million in both 2024 and 2025. These are average values at the plant, not delivered customer prices [1]. The level's recent revenue growth is therefore a price story, not a volume story.

Trade is negligible. Imports were 360,000 metric tons and exports 280,000, leaving net import reliance below 1%; Canada supplied 76% of imports during 2021–2024 and Mexico 19% [1]. This is a domestic, regional market with no meaningful foreign competitive pressure.

Business view (Census). Our ingested federal statistics for NAICS 32741:

Reading the concentration data. Just 29 firms make up the entire national industry, and the four largest ship 82.6% of the total; by the time you reach 50 firms you have counted 100% of receipts. This is a genuinely small, consolidated industry — the HHI of 1,931 sits at the top of the "moderately concentrated" band [3]. USGS's independent count agrees in substance: its top five companies make about 80% of tonnage [1].

Why the two counts differ. Census counts 29 firms and 93 establishments (2022–2023); USGS counts 24 companies and 70 kiln plants plus 11 hydrating plants (2025). Neither is wrong — they use different definitions (a Census "establishment" includes non-kiln sites; USGS counts primary plants), different years, and different scopes, and the company count has been shrinking. Read them as two views of the same small population, not as a discrepancy to reconcile.

Undercount caveat. The Census merchant-market receipts figure ($2.76 billion, 2022) understates total U.S. lime activity relative to the USGS production value ($4.0 billion, 2025) for two honest reasons. First, timing and coverage differ, across a period of sharp price increases. Second, and more structural, a meaningful share of lime is made captively — consumed on-site by the plant that makes it and buried in another industry's statistics (kraft pulp-and-paper mills regenerate lime in recovery kilns; some sugar refiners and steel mills burn their own). USGS notes that 8 of its 24 companies produce lime strictly for internal use [1]. The gap here is specific (captive production), not the small-operator or government-owned blind spot seen in more fragmented industries; ownership is capital-intensive and concentrated, so undercount from small individual operators is minor.

4. The investable universe

Public exposure is thin and identical at both code levels. There is essentially one U.S.-listed pure-play — United States Lime & Minerals (Nasdaq: USLM), roughly $3 billion of market capitalization on $372.7 million of 2025 revenue [7] — plus a diversified aggregates major, Martin Marietta (NYSE: MLM), which agreed in June 2026 to acquire Lhoist North America and become the largest U.S. lime-and-limestone producer [9][10]. Beyond those, Imerys (Euronext: NK) holds lime inside a broader minerals group, and Vulcan (VMC) and Eagle Materials (EXP) carry only incidental exposure [15]. Everything else is private or foreign-owned: Belgium's Lhoist (~20 quarries/plants, 45 terminals, ~$1.8B 2025 gross sales) and Carmeuse (~14 plants, ~8.7M tons of capacity, ~1,400 employees), Canada's Graymont (~$1B revenue), and private-equity-backed Mississippi Lime control most U.S. capacity [5][6][11]. Value concentrates exactly where the child primer describes, because the child is the whole level. See 327410 §4 for the full company-by-company tables.

5. How the money works

The economics are a capacity-utilization, energy, and freight story — the toolkit of a commodity processor. Delivered freight can exceed 25% of the product's price, so each plant competes only within trucking or rail distance, which grants local pricing power; energy (natural gas, coal, or petroleum coke to fire the kilns) is 25%+ of production cost — theoretically about 2.77 million Btu per ton — and swings margins directly; and the durable moat is a high-purity limestone quarry beside the kiln with decades of permitted reserves [16].

What advantaged assets earn. USLM reported 2025 revenue of $372.7 million, gross profit of $182.4 million (~48.9%), and operating profit of $157.9 million (~42.4%), with revenue up 17.3% on 11.7% higher volume and 5.6% higher average prices, a debt-free balance sheet, and reserve lives ranging from about 17 to more than 80 years [7]; its Texas kilns draw cheap Permian-area natural gas at the Waha hub, worth an estimated ~$23 million to 2025 results [8]. Lhoist North America showed $1.75 billion of 2025 revenue and $786 million of adjusted EBITDA — a 45% margin — in transaction materials, though that figure carries company-defined adjustments and is not directly comparable with USLM's GAAP operating margin [10]. Treat both as the potential of well-placed assets, not as industry averages.

And what the cycle does. Lime sold or used fell from 19.9 million metric tons in 2008 to 15.8 million in 2009 before recovering to 19.1 million in 2011, and slid from 16.9 million in 2019 to 15.8 million in 2020 [12][17]. Utilities and REIT/utility-style rate-base or mining all-in-sustaining-cost frameworks do not apply here — this is unregulated industrial manufacturing with commodity pricing. The mechanics are unchanged from NAICS 327410; see 327410 §5 for the detail.

6. Demand drivers

Lime demand tracks heavy industry, environmental rules, and infrastructure. In descending order of U.S. consumption: steelmaking (the largest and most cyclical use, as a flux); chemical and industrial uses; flue-gas treatment (scrubbing sulfur dioxide and acid gases); construction (soil stabilization for roads); water treatment; and nonferrous-metal mining [1][18].

The latest detailed government breakdown (2021) puts numbers on that ranking: metallurgical uses consumed 6.25 million metric tons, of which 5.25 million went to iron and steel; environmental uses 4.39 million (2.92 million for flue-gas treatment, 1.22 million for water treatment); chemical and industrial uses 3.27 million; and construction 2.08 million, of which 1.64 million was soil stabilization [12]. Steel and construction are cyclical; environmental and water demand is steadier and regulation-driven, giving producers a buffer — though the shift from coal-fired power toward gas and renewables has already eroded utility flue-gas-desulfurization volumes, and significant new U.S. coal generation is unlikely [7]. Full breakdown in 327410 §6.

7. Regulation

Regulation cuts both ways. As an emitter, lime kilns are regulated under the Clean Air Act — the EPA's National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for Lime Manufacturing (40 CFR part 63, subpart AAAAA), tightened in July 2024 to add limits on four previously unregulated pollutants (hydrogen chloride, mercury, total organic HAP, and dioxin/furans), plus greenhouse-gas reporting under 40 CFR part 98, subpart S [19][20]. The scale of the emissions footprint is documented: 68 lime-manufacturing reporters emitted 25.6 million metric tons of CO₂-equivalent in 2023 [21]. EPA estimated $484 million of control capital and roughly $167 million of annual engineering cost (2022 dollars) across affected facilities, and modeled a 5.5% price increase and 1.4% output decline — modeled effects, not observed outcomes, and EPA acknowledged it lacked lime-specific elasticity estimates [12]. EPA announced in March 2025 that it would reconsider several air rules, so the compliance trajectory retains policy uncertainty [22].

Roughly 0.75–0.79 ton of CO₂ per ton of lime is released chemically by calcination itself — about two-thirds of a plant's emissions and unavoidable regardless of fuel — which exposes the industry to future carbon pricing but also to subsidized carbon capture (e.g., U.S. Section 45Q) [16]. As a beneficiary, tighter air, drinking-water, and wastewater rules increase lime demand. See 327410 §7.

8. Consolidation

The industry is concentrated nationally (CR4 of 82.6%, HHI 1,931) and even more so regionally, where freight limits competition to a local radius and many markets are effective duopolies or monopolies [3]. The last authoritative named ranking, USGS's 2019 Minerals Yearbook, put Lhoist North America, Graymont, Carmeuse Americas, Mississippi Lime, Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties, and United States Lime & Minerals as the first six producers, with ten companies accounting for 99% of commercial lime sales and 91% of total output [14].

The defining recent event is Martin Marietta's June 27, 2026 agreement to acquire Lhoist North America for $13.5 billion ($7 billion cash plus $6.5 billion stock), set to make it the largest U.S. lime-and-limestone producer and bringing more than 2 billion tons of reserves — a roughly 200-year life. The disclosed price equates to about 15 times 2025 adjusted EBITDA including expected run-rate synergies, which is a national-scale strategic multiple and should not be read across to smaller regional plants. The deal is subject to regulatory review and expected to close in the second half of 2026 [9][10]. The signal is that cash-rich aggregates majors now value lime's margins at premium multiples; expect both further consolidation and more antitrust attention. Barriers to entry — permitted high-purity reserves, kiln capital, air permits — are steep, and new national entrants are essentially unheard of. Full account in 327410 §8.

9. Risks

The level's risks are the child's risks: steel and construction cyclicality in the largest end markets, with the 2008–09 and 2019–20 volume declines as the template [12][17]; energy-price swings (fuel is 25%+ of cost, and low-cost-gas advantages can reverse) [16]; carbon and compliance costs from unavoidable process CO₂, including the 2024 NESHAP tightening's estimated $484 million of industry control capital [12][19]; freight inflation that can shrink each plant's serviceable market and, on delivered-price contracts, stay with the producer [7]; antitrust review of further consolidation; permitting and operating risk — quarry expansion, air permits, variable stone chemistry, and kiln outages that are costly because customers consume lime continuously and can qualify alternative suppliers [7]; application-specific substitution (crushed limestone, cement-kiln dust, fly ash, magnesium hydroxide and others, riskiest where a customer needs only alkalinity or bulk stabilization) [12]; single-asset/regional exposure for smaller producers; and, for public investors, the thin float of the sole pure-play, which is closely controlled [7]. Detail in 327410 §9.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes are narrow: USLM as the only U.S.-listed pure-play (debt-free, ~49% gross and ~42% operating margins, dividend-paying, but closely held and single-region), and MLM as the diversified way to own the sector's emerging leader once the Lhoist deal closes; Imerys and the aggregates majors offer only partial or incidental exposure [7][8][9][10][15]. Most U.S. capacity is private or foreign, so direct private access comes through private-equity and industrial ownership of platforms like Mississippi Lime, Lhoist, Carmeuse, and Graymont — not a liquid market for physical lime — and there reserve quality, permits, fuel flexibility, and delivered-market radius matter more than nameplate capacity [5][6][11]. Near term, volumes hinge on steel output and infrastructure spending with steadier support from environmental and water demand, while margins depend on the price-versus-energy spread that has lately been historically wide [1][7]. On balance, the freight moat, reserve scarcity, and regulation-driven environmental demand make this a structurally attractive but cyclical, capital-heavy industry where ownership — not trading — is how most of the money is made. For the complete outlook and the forward-looking judgment, read 327410 Lime Manufacturing.

---

Sources

Drawn from the child primer (NAICS 327410) and renumbered contiguously for this page.

1. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — Lime, 2026. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-lime.pdf
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 327410 — establishments, employment, payroll), 2023. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration & Receipts (NAICS 327410: firms, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI), 2022. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (NAICS 327410 = 1,050 employees), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. Lhoist North America — company profile (Belgian-owned; ~20 quarries/facilities, 45 terminals; ~$1.8B gross sales), 2025. https://rocketreach.co/lhoist-north-america-inc-profile_b5c68ec5f42e0ce3
6. Wikipedia, Carmeuse (Belgian, private; ~14 U.S. plants, ~8.7M tons capacity, ~1,400 employees), 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmeuse
7. United States Lime & Minerals, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (revenue $372.7M; gross profit $182.4M; operating profit $157.9M; reserve lives; risk factors), SEC EDGAR, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/82020/000110465926020480/uslm-20251231x10k.htm
8. Macrotrends, United States Lime & Minerals Gross Margin (expansion to ~49%) and USLM analysis (Waha gas advantage), 2025. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/USLM/united-states-lime-minerals/gross-margin
9. Martin Marietta Materials, Martin Marietta to Combine with Lhoist North America in $13.5 Billion Transaction (announced June 2026; $7B cash + $6.5B stock; largest U.S. lime+limestone producer), IR News Release, 2026. https://ir.martinmarietta.com/news-releases/news-release-details/martin-marietta-combine-lhoist-north-america-135-billion
10. Martin Marietta Materials, Form 8-K and Transaction Presentation (Lhoist NA 2025 ~$1.75B revenue / ~$786M EBITDA / 45% margin; 2B+ tons reserves; ~15x EV/EBITDA with synergies), SEC EDGAR, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/916076/000095015726000758/ex99-2.htm
11. Growjo / IBISWorld, Graymont & Mississippi Lime company profiles (Graymont ~$1B revenue; Mississippi Lime PE-backed via HBM Holdings), 2025. https://growjo.com/company/Carmeuse_Lime_and_Stone
12. U.S. EPA, Regulatory Impact Analysis: NESHAP for Lime Manufacturing Plants Technology Review (2021 end-use breakdown; compliance costs; substitutes; cyclicality data), June 2024. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-06/ria_lime_manufacturing_neshap_final_2024.pdf
13. National Lime Association, How Lime Is Made (production process overview; terminology), 2025. https://www.lime.org/resource/how-lime-is-made/
14. U.S. Geological Survey, 2019 Minerals Yearbook — Lime (named producer ranking; top-10 companies = 99% commercial sales, 91% of output), 2021. https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol1/2019/myb1-2019-lime.pdf
15. Market Data Forecast / Ken Research, U.S. & North America Lime Market (key players; end-market context), 2025. https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/united-states-lime-market
16. European Lime Association (Ecofys), A Competitive and Efficient Lime Industry and related life-cycle analyses (energy ~25%+ of cost; ~2.77 MMBtu/ton; ~0.79 tCO₂/t process emissions ≈ 65% of total; freight >25% of price), 2019. https://www.eula.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/A-Competitive-and-Efficient-Lime-Industry-Technical-report-by-Ecofys_0.pdf
17. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2023 (historical production data), 2023. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf
18. IndexBox, Calcium Oxide Market Outlook (steel ~one-third-plus of lime consumption), 2025. https://www.indexbox.io/blog/calcium-oxide-market-growth-trajectory-points-higher-toward-2035-driven-by-steel-and-environmental-demand/
19. U.S. EPA / Federal Register, NESHAP: Lime Manufacturing Plants Technology Review (final rule adds HCl, mercury, organic HAP, dioxin/furan limits), July 16, 2024. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/16/2024-14692/national-emission-standards-for-hazardous-air-pollutants-lime-manufacturing-plants-technology-review
20. U.S. EPA / eCFR, 40 CFR Part 98, Subpart S — Lime Manufacturing (greenhouse-gas reporting), current. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-98/subpart-S
21. U.S. EPA, GHGRP Minerals Profile (68 lime reporters, 25.6M tCO₂e in 2023), 2024. https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgrp-minerals
22. U.S. EPA, Lime Manufacturing Plants NESHAP (rule status; March 2025 reconsideration announcement), current. https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/lime-manufacturing-plants-national-emission-standards-hazardous