Peoria, Ill.-based heavy equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. announced July 30 that it will build an 850,000-sq-ft mining equipment plant in Winston-Salem, N.C. Construction of the facility, where the company will machine, assemble, test and paint axle assemblies for its  mining trucks, is set to begin in November, with production scheduled to start in early 2012. “Caterpillar has worked hard with many local partners in North Carolina, and we thank them for their assistance during the site selection process,” says Hans Haefeli, vice president for advanced components and systems. “We look forward to establishing our new lower powertrain facility in Winston-Salem,

More than a year ago, Martha Bidez, a University of Alabama-Birmingham engineering professor, envisioned a new online master’s-degree track to focus explicitly on disaster prevention and systems safety. In early 2010, she began to develop its curriculum and recruit industry experts with experience in high-profile catastrophes to advise and teach. The program, the first such track in the U.S., say university officials, was inspired by a fatal blast in 2005 at a refinery owned by oil giant BP. Now the firm’s latest disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is imparting new momentum to the plans. Preventing disasters such as BP’s

Birmingham, Ala.-based Vulcan Materials Co. has agreed to pay the Illinois Dept. of Transportation $40 million to settle a 2001 lawsuit contending the aggregates producer damaged a former major artery that bisects an operating company quarry in McCook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. The road has been closed for more than a decade after it shifted suddenly. Photo: Vulcan Materials Aggregate mining was the cause of the Joliet Road collapse, the state of Illinois contended. Vulcan Materials disputed the claim but has agreed to pay the state DOT $40 million. The suit contended that Vulcan, the largest construction aggregate supplier

The first quarter was tough for two leading U.S. construction aggregates producers, with high diesel fuel costs, record bad weather and slow-moving stimulus work combining to hammer revenue and profits for Vulcan Materials Co., Birmingham, Ala., and Martin Marietta Materials Inc., Raleigh, N.C. But both saw some improvement going into the second quarter and predict more stimulus demand by year’s end. Photo: Vulcan Materials Co. Aggregates could pick up in demand this year as stimulus-funded highway jobs progress. For the first quarter ended on March 31, Vulcan, the largest U.S. aggregates maker, reported on May 3 a $39-million loss—$6 million

Expert crews are rappelling down a steep wall of jagged, unstable rocks above Interstate 40 in western North Carolina, beginning the cleanup and repair process of an Oct. 25 rockslide that shut the highway down. The repair could take four months and cost $10 million. The 500,000-ton rockslide on U.S. Forest Service land caused the North Carolina Dept. of Transportation to declare an emergency and Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) has asked the U.S. Dept. of Transportation to declare the rockslide a federal disaster area. Crews with contractor Phillips & Jordan Inc., Knoxville, Tenn., are working with rock stabilization specialists from

The U.S. Dept. of Commerce has imposed import duties of up to 31% on steel pipe from China, agreeing with a complaint filed by American producers and steelworkers that the imports were unfairly subsidized by China’s government. The average duties on the pipe, used in oil and gas wells and known in the industry as oil-country tubular products, will be 21.3%, according to Commerce. Roughly $2.8 billion in Chinese steel pipe is imported annually, but industry analysts say that could fall off sharply, or even completely, because of the tariffs. That drop could help complainant U.S. Steel and other domestic