Allied Mineral Products, after breaking ground a little over a year ago, opened a new manufacturing facility in Pell City, Ala. When Allied purchased Riverside Refractories in 2017, it acquired two locations in Alabama: Anniston and Pell City. To better serve the customer base in the southeast region, Allied combined both locations into one facility. Pell City joins Allied’s U.S. manufacturing operations in Columbus, Ohio; Brownsville, Texas; and Chehalis, Wash.

Because of equipment improvements and material innovations – such as no-cement, colloidal silica, which offers optimal alkali resistance and bonding properties – contractors are installing monolithic refractories in areas of cement kilns once reserved for brick refractory.

HarbisonWalker International (HWI) celebrated the grand opening of its newly constructed monolithic refractories manufacturing plant in South Point, Ohio. HWI announced in February 2017 that it would invest $30 million to build a technologically advanced refractories plant. Ground was broken for the facility on June 8, 2017, and the plant began shipping products in spring 2018. The plant features state-of-the-art processes and technology and utilizes lean-manufacturing techniques throughout its operations to maximize material flow efficiency and production.