Cement Manufacturing in the United States (NAICS 32731)

An investor's primer — for both public-market and private investors

Short page — single-child pass-through. This is a rollup level of the U.S. industry-classification system. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 32731 contains exactly one child industry, 327310, and is effectively identical to it. This page gives the level's own definition and ground-truth federal figures, then points you to the full 327310 primer for the detailed treatment.

1. Overview

Cement is the gray powder that, mixed with water, sand, and crushed stone, becomes concrete — the most-used building material on earth. This level of the taxonomy covers the businesses that make the powder, not the concrete or the finished products built from it [1].

It is a small, capital-heavy, cyclical manufacturing business that sits at the base of nearly every construction project: roads, bridges, dams, foundations, floors, and buildings all depend on it. Its defining economic feature is that cement is heavy and cheap relative to its bulk, so it is uneconomic to ship far — a national commodity fractures into regional oligopolies (a handful of sellers dominating each local market), where a plant that controls its 150-to-300-mile delivery radius behaves like a local toll booth on construction activity. Freight economics are reinforced by capital cost: a modern integrated cement plant runs on the order of $1 billion to build, which is a natural barrier to new entrants [1].

Because NAICS 32731 equals its one child, everything true of 327310 is true here. The rest of this page is deliberately brief; for the full analysis — investable names, economics, decarbonization, consolidation history, and risks — read the 327310 primer.

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

The NAICS hierarchy nests from broad to narrow: sector (2-digit) → subsector (3-digit) → industry group (4-digit) → NAICS industry (5-digit) → national industry (6-digit). NAICS 32731 — Cement Manufacturing is a 5-digit industry, and it splits into just one 6-digit national industry:

When a 5-digit industry has only one 6-digit child, the two codes describe the exact same set of establishments and carry the same statistics. There is no aggregation happening: 32731 is 327310 under a shorter code. (One level up, 32731 sits alongside its siblings — ready-mixed concrete, concrete products, lime, and gypsum — inside NAICS 3273, "Cement and Concrete Product Manufacturing.")

Scope, in one line: establishments that manufacture hydraulic cement — portland, natural, masonry, pozzolanic, and blended cements — plus the clinker (the fused, marble-sized nodules) that is ground into cement [1][2]. Some sites are integrated plants with their own quarries and kilns; others are grinding plants that finish domestic or imported clinker locally. The code excludes ready-mixed concrete (NAICS 327320, the industry's largest customer), concrete products (327331/327332/327390), lime (327410), gypsum (327420), and the crushed-stone/sand/gravel aggregates quarried under mining (NAICS 212). The 327310 primer explains these boundaries in detail — they are where investors most often get confused.

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

Because 32731 equals 327310, the federal business statistics for the two codes are the same. Figures below are our ground-truth ingested values for NAICS 32731:

Concentration (2022 Economic Census) [4]:

The top four firms make just over half the industry's revenue, and the top 20 make essentially all of it. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge where above 1,800 reads as "highly concentrated") of ~1,034 looks only moderately concentrated nationally — but that understates reality, because the market that matters is regional and most metros are served by only two or three plants. Local concentration is far higher than the national number. An industry-side read points the same way: an Amrize registration statement, citing American Cement Association data, puts the top five producers at approximately 57% of U.S. cement output [6].

The physical picture (USGS). The U.S. Geological Survey tracks the commodity rather than the business and gives a fuller operating snapshot than the business census. In 2025 the United States produced an estimated 84 million metric tons of cement — including 69 million metric tons of clinker — at 97 plants across 34 states and Puerto Rico, with Texas, Missouri, California, and Florida together making about 44% of the total. Shipments to final customers reached roughly 100 million metric tons valued at about $17 billion, at an average mill unit value of $160 per metric ton; apparent consumption including imports was approximately 110 million metric tons. An estimated 70–75% went to ready-mixed concrete producers, about 11% to concrete-product makers, 8–10% to contractors, and 5–10% to other customers [1].

Reading the two revenue figures together. The Census receipts number ($11.7 billion, 2022) and the USGS shipment value (~$17 billion, 2025) are not in conflict: they cover different years, and the USGS figure also captures imported cement resold domestically across a period of sharp price increases [1][4].

Undercount caveat — but in the opposite direction from most industries. This is a rare case where the concern is not fragmented micro-operators escaping federal counts: cement is a concentrated, corporate industry that government statistics capture well. The distortion here is that ~12,800 direct manufacturing jobs understate the industry's economic weight — cement is capital-intensive, not labor-intensive, and its real footprint shows up downstream in the far larger ready-mix, concrete-products, and construction chain it feeds. The gap between USGS's 97 integrated/grinding plants and the Census's 192 establishments reflects the terminals, grinding stations, and administrative sites also coded here [1][3].

4. Investable universe — where value concentrates

With only one child industry, there is no "which child holds the value" question: all of the level's value sits in 327310. The takeaways carry straight over:

• There is no large-cap, U.S.-listed cement pure-play. Most U.S. capacity is owned by foreign-listed multinationals (Amrize, Heidelberg Materials, Cemex, CRH, Buzzi, Titan, GCC, and Taiheiyo Cement's CalPortland) or by large private domestic firms — notably Quikrete Holdings, which took Summit Materials private in a ~$11.5 billion deal announced in 2024 and closed in February 2025 [7][8].
• The cleanest listed exposures are Amrize (AMRZ), the largest cement producer in the U.S. and Canada, spun off from Switzerland's Holcim in June 2025 — 18 cement plants, 2025 revenue of roughly $11.8 billion and adjusted EBITDA of about $3.0 billion [9][10]; Eagle Materials (EXP), a U.S. cement-plus-wallboard producer with 8 plants and about 6.7 million tons of clinker capacity, roughly 6% of the U.S. total [11][12]; and Titan America (TTAM), an East-coast producer that listed in February 2025 with two plants and 3.8 million tons of combined capacity at year-end 2025 [13][14].
• The diversified route buys cement as one segment among several: Cemex (CX) runs 8 U.S. plants with about 12.1 million tons of capacity plus a large terminal network [15]; CRH owns Ash Grove and reports 11 U.S. cement quarry properties with 12 million tons of annualized extraction [16]; Heidelberg Materials holds the Lehigh Hanson operations and added Giant Cement for about $600 million in 2024 [17]; GCC operates 5 U.S. plants across the Plains and Mountain West [18].
• A large share of U.S. capacity is privately held, so federal firm counts (95 firms) capture the producers but not the public-market opportunity — most of the industry never trades on an exchange.
• Two names investors reach for are not cement bets: Vulcan Materials (VMC) is essentially aggregates, asphalt, and ready-mix, and Martin Marietta (MLM) is aggregates-first with a small retained Texas cement business.

The full ticker-by-ticker table, private owners, and the rest of the "not actually a cement bet" traps are in the 327310 primer, Section 4.

5. How the money works

Cement is a fixed-cost, capacity-utilization business wrapped in local pricing power. The levers, in brief:

• Capacity utilization — kilns have enormous fixed costs and run best flat-out; each incremental ton is highly profitable near capacity and margins collapse when construction slows. The U.S. still carries slack: USGS puts 2025 clinker production at 69 million metric tons against 100 million tons of clinker capacity, and CRH reports its kilns ran at 72% average utilization in 2025 [1][16].
• Price per ton ("mill net") — producers price at the plant gate and pass freight to the buyer, so whoever sits closest to the pour wins. The USGS average mill value rose from $127 per metric ton in 2021 to $160 in 2025 even with apparent consumption roughly flat — strong price realization, though not a guarantee that pricing stays insensitive to future excess supply [1].
• Energy — fuel (coal, petroleum coke, gas, and increasingly waste-derived alternatives) plus electricity is a large slice of cash cost, and price swings move margins directly [15].
• Freight and geography — cement moves ~150–300 miles by truck economically, farther by rail, barge, or ship; Cemex says most of its U.S. cement is sold within about 200 miles of a plant. Coastal markets are disciplined by imports [15].
• Vertical integration — the best-returning models push downstream into aggregates and ready-mix, capturing chain margin and locking in a captive buyer.

Well-run integrated producers can earn EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margins in the mid-20s to mid-30s percent in strong markets — prized for pricing resilience, punished in downturns by operating leverage. Eagle Materials' fiscal 2025 cement segment is a clean illustration: $1.2 billion of revenue, $319.5 million of operating earnings, a 27% operating margin, with higher prices adding $35.4 million while lower volume cost about $17.5 million [12]. Section 5 of the 327310 primer expands each lever.

6. What drives demand

Cement demand is derived demand for construction, across three end markets [19]:

• Residential — foundations and slabs; highly sensitive to mortgage rates and home prices, and the near-term drag on the whole industry.
• Nonresidential / commercial — mostly soft lately, with one bright spot: a data-center construction boom tied to AI and cloud buildout.
• Infrastructure / public works — the most cement-intensive category per dollar; the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, 2021) put ~$1.2 trillion into play, roughly $500 billion of it for roads, bridges, and major projects, only ~40% spent as of late 2025, so it should support demand for several more years.

The cycle showed up plainly in 2025: total U.S. construction put in place fell 1.8% over the first eight months versus 2024, single-family housing starts through August were down 4.9% (multifamily up 17.5%), and cement shipments through the first nine months fell 2.1% [1]. The American Cement Association (ACA) projected U.S. consumption to dip ~1.6% in 2025, then return to modest growth in 2026 and stronger growth in 2027 — a forward-looking view, not a certainty [19].

7. Regulation

Cement is one of the most heavily environmentally regulated manufacturing industries, and the regulatory arc points toward decarbonization:

• Air toxics — plants must meet the EPA's NESHAP (National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants) "PC MACT" rule for Portland cement, limiting mercury, hydrochloric acid, particulates, and total hydrocarbons [20].
• Carbon is the defining issue — cement causes an outsized share of global CO₂ (commonly cited around 7–8%) because most emissions are chemical rather than combustion-related: the Department of Energy attributes 58% of 2015 U.S. cement-industry CO₂ to calcination, the release of carbon dioxide when limestone is heated to make clinker. Fuel switching alone therefore cannot decarbonize conventional clinker, which is what makes this one of the hardest industries to abate [21][22].
• State mandates are the leading edge — California's SB 596 requires a cement-sector strategy targeting greenhouse-gas intensity 40% below baseline by 2035 and net-zero by 2045 [23].
• Industry responses — Portland-Limestone Cement (PLC, "Type IL"), approved in all 50 states and D.C., cuts CO₂ per ton by roughly 10%; blended cements were about 63% of shipments in the first nine months of 2025, roughly 95% of that PLC [1][24]. Supplementary cementitious materials (fly ash, slag, calcined clay) cut clinker content further, but conventional fly-ash supply is shrinking as coal plants retire — which is why CRH paid $2.1 billion for Eco Material Technologies, a harvested-ash processor [12][16]. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is the deep-cut route, backed by federal 45Q tax credits and DOE grants: a Heidelberg project in Indiana is designed to capture at least 95% of plant CO₂ and prevent 2 million metric tons of annual emissions, with a federal cost share of up to $500 million — evidence of both the potential and the capital required [25]. Alternative fuels round out the toolkit.

Policy cuts both ways — tighter carbon rules raise costs, but incentives (45Q, IIJA "Buy Clean" procurement) reward the cleanest producers. Full detail in Section 7 of the 327310 primer.

8. Consolidation

The past decade of U.S. cement is a story of consolidation and foreign ownership: Lafarge and Holcim merged (2015); CRH bought Ash Grove (2018); Heidelberg absorbed Lehigh Hanson. More recently, Summit Materials acquired Argos USA (2024) and was then taken private by Quikrete for ~$11.5 billion (closed February 2025) [7]; CRH bought Martin Marietta's South Texas cement for $2.1 billion (2023) and Eco Material Technologies for $2.1 billion (2025) [16][26]; Heidelberg Materials acquired Giant Cement for about $600 million (2024) [17]; Holcim spun off its North American business as Amrize (June 2025) [9]; and Titan America carved out a U.S. listing (2025) [13].

Each regional market is a stable oligopoly protected by high entry costs, long permitting timelines, and freight economics. The main competitive threat and price disciplinarian is imports: the U.S. was 21% net-import-reliant in 2025, importing roughly 23 million metric tons of hydraulic cement and 660,000 tons of clinker against about 1 million tons of exports, with 2021–24 supply coming mainly from Turkey (32%), Canada (20%), Vietnam (13%), and Greece (9%) [1]. Imports both fill a genuine domestic capacity shortfall and cap coastal prices, which makes trade policy a live swing factor — the ordinary tariff schedule listed clinker and the principal hydraulic cements as duty-free at normal trade relations as of December 31, 2025, though country-specific and temporary measures can change landed cost [27].

9. Risks

The risk profile is 327310's in full:

• Construction cyclicality — the dominant risk; high operating leverage means volume downturns hit margins hard, and the industry is exposed to interest rates, housing, and public budgets [19].
• Energy costs — a large, volatile input that compresses margins quickly when it spikes [15].
• Carbon regulation and transition cost — the hardest-to-abate emissions profile of any major material, since 58% of industry CO₂ comes from calcination chemistry rather than fuel; CCUS is capital-heavy and unproven at scale [22][25].
• Import competition and trade policy — roughly 21% of supply is imported; tariff changes and foreign capacity swing coastal pricing both ways [1].
• Overcapacity / underutilization — idle capacity has pressured returns, with CRH reporting 72% average kiln utilization in 2025; a demand air-pocket turns plants unprofitable fast [1][16].
• Equipment and operating risk — kilns run hot, continuously, and abrasively, and unplanned downtime costs both volume and fixed-cost absorption; Amrize attributed $50 million of extra third-quarter 2025 cost to a temporary cement-network equipment outage [10].
• Permitting and reserves — plants depend on long-lived limestone reserves and hard-to-replace permits; this is a risk for the holder and a moat against the entrant.
• Foreign-parent / single-segment exposure — several listed routes carry currency risk or bury the cement thesis inside a broader materials portfolio.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Routes in. Because 32731 is 327310, the how-to-invest map is identical. Public-market investors get the largest, cleanest exposure through Amrize (AMRZ), a U.S. pure-play flavor through Eagle Materials (EXP) or Titan America (TTAM), and diversified materials exposure through CRH, Martin Marietta (MLM), or Cemex (CX) — where cement is one lever among aggregates, concrete, and wallboard [9][11][13][15][16][26]. Foreign majors are reachable via American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) such as Heidelberg Materials (HDELY) and Buzzi (BZZUY), or a local listing like GCC [17][18]. Materials names typically trade on EV/EBITDA (enterprise value to EBITDA) and free-cash-flow yield rather than simple price/earnings, reflecting the heavy capital base. Private investors reach cement through construction-materials private equity, aggregates/ready-mix roll-ups, and infrastructure funds, since so much capacity is privately held — and the recent deal scale shows the capital involved: ~$11.5 billion for Summit, $2.1 billion for Eco Material, ~$600 million for Giant Cement [7][16][17]. Smaller, economically adjacent routes — import terminals, regional ready-mix, quarry and logistics assets, ash beneficiation, decarbonization technology — sit outside 327310 proper but track the same cycle.

Near-term outlook (forward-looking, not assured): a soft 2025 (consumption ~-1.6%) giving way to modest 2026 growth and stronger 2027 growth as mortgage rates ease and infrastructure spending accelerates [19]. The bull case rests on the still-unspent IIJA pipeline — roughly 60% of the roads-and-bridges money has yet to flow — and the data-center boom; the bear case is a housing-led slowdown, an energy spike, or an import surge. Pricing discipline, high entry barriers, and consolidated regional markets remain structurally intact — the swing variable is the construction cycle, and the long-term overhang is the cost and pace of decarbonization.

For the complete primer — full investable-universe table, private owners, detailed economics, and sources — see NAICS 327310, which this level equals.

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Sources

1. U.S. Geological Survey, "Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Cement," 2026. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-cement.pdf
2. U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS 327310 definition. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=327310&input=327310&year=2007
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 327310), 2024. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration Ratios / Selected Statistics (NAICS 327310), 2025. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
5. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Small Business Size Standards," 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
6. Amrize Ltd, Registration Statement (top-five concentration data citing American Cement Association), 2025. https://www.holcim.com/sites/holcim/files/docs/20250602_8k_amrize_registration_statement_update.pdf
7. Rock Products Magazine, "Instant Analysis: Summit–Quikrete Deal a Win-Win," 2024; Summit Materials merger filing, 2025. https://rockproducts.com/2024/11/26/instant-analysis-summit-quikcrete-deal-a-win-win/
8. Taiheiyo Cement Corporation, Sustainability Report 2025 (identifying CalPortland), 2025. https://www.taiheiyo-cement.co.jp/english/csr/pdf/data/2025/Taiheiyo-Cement-rep2025en_a4.pdf
9. Amrize Ltd, "Amrize Completes Spin-Off from Holcim; Begins Trading as AMRZ" and full-year 2025 results, 2025. https://investors.amrize.com/news/detail/122/amrize-delivers-strong-free-cash-flow-in-2025-shareholder-return-plan-proposed
10. Amrize Ltd, 2025 Form 10-K and Q3 2025 earnings release, 2025–2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2035989/000203598926000017/holcim-20251231.htm
11. Eagle Materials Inc., "Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2025 Results," 2025. https://ir.eaglematerials.com/news-releases/news-release-details/eagle-materials-announces-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2025
12. Eagle Materials Inc., Fiscal 2025 Form 10-K (segment economics), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/918646/000095017025075321/exp-20250331.htm
13. Cleary Gottlieb, "Titan America in $384 Million IPO," 2025. https://www.clearygottlieb.com/news-and-insights/news-listing/titan-america-in-384-million-ipo
14. Titan America, 2025 Form 10-K (capacity figures), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2035304/000203530426000047/ttam-20251231.htm
15. Cemex S.A.B. de C.V., Form 20-F (FY2025) — U.S. cement operations and capacity, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001076378/000119312526177605/d120395d20f.htm
16. CRH plc, 2025 Form 10-K (kiln utilization, quarry properties) and Eco Material Technologies acquisition announcement, 2025–2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/849395/000162828026009043/crh-20251231.htm
17. Heidelberg Materials, "Heidelberg Materials to acquire Giant Cement Holding," 2024. https://www.heidelbergmaterials.com/en/pr-2024-11-28
18. Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), investor materials — U.S. plants and terminals, 2025. https://www.ir.gcc.com/en/inversionistas/media
19. American Cement Association, "U.S. Cement Consumption Expected to Dip — Spring 2025 Economic Forecast," 2025. https://www.cement.org/2025/05/19/u-s-cement-consumption-expected-to-dip-recession-not-a-foregone-conclusion-in-cement-industry-associations-spring-economic-forecast/
20. U.S. EPA, "NESHAP for the Portland Cement Manufacturing Industry: Fact Sheet," 2024. https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/neshap-portland-cement-manufacturing-industry-fact-sheet
21. Clean Air Task Force, "Recasting the Future: Policy Approaches to Drive Cement Decarbonization," 2025. https://www.catf.us/resource/recasting-future-policy-approaches-drive-cement-decarbonization/
22. U.S. Department of Energy, "Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap," 2022. https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/Industrial%20Decarbonization%20Roadmap.pdf
23. California Air Resources Board, "Net-Zero Emissions Strategy for Cement Sector" (SB 596), 2024. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/net-zero-emissions-strategy-cement-sector
24. Federal Highway Administration, "Portland-Limestone Cement" (FHWA-HRT-23-104), and American Cement Association PLC materials, 2023–2024. https://highways.dot.gov/media/34231
25. U.S. Department of Energy, "Industrial Demonstrations Program: Selected and Awarded Projects — Cement and Concrete," 2025. https://www.energy.gov/cmei/oced/industrial-demonstrations-program-selected-and-awarded-projects-cement-and-concrete
26. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP / Pit & Quarry, "Martin Marietta's $2.1 Billion Sale of South Texas Cement Operations to CRH plc," 2023. https://www.pitandquarry.com/crh-martin-marietta-make-a-deal-in-texas/
27. U.S. International Trade Commission, Harmonized Tariff Schedule (2523.10.00.00), 2026. https://hts.usitc.gov/search?query=2523.10.00.00