USA: Holcim cement plant mines limestone, other materials on-site

The Holcim (US) Holly Hill cement plant opened in 1966, ready to supply much-needed cement to the Southeast.

Prior to the opening of the plant, Home Branch, a tributary of Four Hole Swamp, ran through what is now the company’s quarry.

Holcim’s existing diversion canal re-routed Home Branch around the quarry in the late 1970s and early 1980s in order to divert water away from the mining operations.

Currently, a new stream channel through the middle of the quarry is being designed in an effort to protect it from potential flooding.

The on-site natural resources at the Holly Hill plant contribute to its production.

The quarry on the 3,700-acre property, a multiple bench limestone mine, holds more than 70 percent of the raw materials needed for making cement.

Material is quarried by bucket wheel excavator, conveyed to a belt wagon, crushed, transferred to a belt conveyor system and stockpiled in a storage facility.

The limestone is combined with other materials and used at the mine site to produce cement that is sold in bulk and bag for use in the construction industry.

Sedimentary textures and fossils indicate the limestone that is mined at the Holly Hill plant is in the Eocene Santee Formation, which was formed in a shallow marine and lagoonal environment.

Holcim’s Holly Hill cement plant has grown along with demand. The first shipment left the plant in May 1966. In 1972, a second kiln was added; a third kiln was added in 2001. In December 2001, the name of the plant at the time — Holnam — was changed to Holcim.

In 2003, a single dry-process kiln replaced the plant’s two wet-process kilns, boosting production to about 2 million metric tons of cement per year — nearly six times the plant’s original output.

The Holly Hill plant currently employs 188 people.

Parent company Holcim Ltd. is considered one of the nation’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of cement and mineral components. Holcim (US) has approximately 1,800 employees and operates 12 manufacturing plants and more than 50 distribution facilities in the United States.