United States Lime And Minerals Inc Company Profile

United States Lime & Minerals, Inc., which was incorporated in 1950, conducts its business through two segments, Lime and Limestone Operations and Natural Gas Interests. The Company, through its Lime and Limestone Operations, is a manufacturer of lime and limestone products, supplying primarily the construction (including highway, road and building contractors), environmental (including municipal sanitation and water treatment facilities and flue gas treatment processes), industrial (including paper and glass manufacturers), metals (including steel producers), roof shingle, oil and gas services and agriculture (including poultry and cattle feed producers) industries. The Company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and operates lime and limestone plants and distribution facilities in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Arkansas Lime Company, Colorado Lime Company, Texas Lime Company, U.S. Lime Company, U.S. Lime Company—Shreveport, U.S. Lime Company—St. Clair and U.S. Lime Company—Transportation.

The Company extracts high-quality limestone from its open-pit quarries and an underground mine and then processes it for sale as pulverized limestone, quicklime, hydrated lime and lime slurry. Pulverized limestone (also referred to as ground calcium carbonate) (“PLS”) is produced by applying heat to dry the limestone, which is then ground to granular and finer sizes. Quicklime (calcium oxide) is produced by heating limestone to very high temperatures in kilns in a process called calcination. Hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) is produced by reacting quicklime with water in a controlled process. Lime slurry (milk of lime) is a suspended solution of calcium hydroxide produced by mixing quicklime with water in a lime slaker.

PLS is used in the production of construction materials such as roof shingles and asphalt paving, as an additive to agriculture feeds, in the production of glass, as a soil enhancement, in flue gas treatment for utilities and other industries requiring scrubbing of emissions for environmental purposes and for mine safety dust in coal mining operations. Quicklime is used primarily in metal processing, in flue gas treatment, in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction, as well as for oilfield roads and drill sites, in the manufacturing of paper products and in municipal sanitation and water treatment facilities. Hydrated lime is used primarily in municipal sanitation and water treatment facilities, in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction, in flue gas treatment, in asphalt as an anti-stripping agent, as a conditioning agent for oil and gas drilling mud, in the production of chemicals and in the production of construction materials such as stucco, plaster and mortar. Lime slurry is used primarily in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction.

The Company extracts limestone by the open-pit method at its Texas and Arkansas quarries. The Monarch Pass Quarry is also an open-pit quarry, but is not being mined at this time. The open-pit method consists of removing any overburden comprising soil and other substances, including inferior limestone, and then extracting the exposed high-quality limestone. The Company removes such overburden by utilizing both its own employees and equipment and those of outside contractors. Open-pit mining is generally less expensive than underground mining. The principal disadvantage of the open-pit method is that operations are subject to inclement weather and overburden removal. The limestone is extracted by drilling and blasting, utilizing standard mining equipment. At its St. Clair underground mine, the Company mines limestone using room and pillar mining. The Company has no knowledge of any recent changes in the physical quarrying or mining conditions on any of its properties that have materially affected its quarrying or mining operations, and no such changes are anticipated.