Ponce Cement, Inc. was a

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

and

lime Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Botany ...

stone manufacturer in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...

. The company was located at the intersection of

PR-123 Puerto Rico Highway 123 (PR-123) is a secondary highway that connects the city Arecibo to the city of Ponce. It runs through the towns of Utuado and Adjuntas, before reaching Ponce. A parallel road is being built, PR-10, that is expected to tak ...

and PR-500, in

Barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...

Magueyes. It was founded in 1941 by Antonio Ferre Bacallao, a Puerto Rican industrialist of Cuban origin. In 1963, the company became the first Puerto Rican company to go public and be listed in the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

. Ponce Cement was part of the ''Empresas Ferré'' enterprise from 1941 to 2002. In 1950, Empresas Ferré purchased another cement enterprise, the Puerto Rico Cement Company, then owned by the Government of Puerto Rico. In 2002, Ponce Cement, Inc., was sold to Cemex, a

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

business concern that is both the world's largest building materials supplier and the third largest cement producer, of which Ponce Cement is now a subsidiary. The plant continues to operate at the same location, and continues to sell its products to the Puerto Rico market, but with the change in ownership, the company is no longer named ''Ponce Cement, Inc.''; it is now ''Cemex, Puerto Rico''. The new owners did keep the ''Cemento Ponce'' product label.

History

Ponce Cement Plant in Ponce, Puerto Rico (IMG 3010)

The municipality of Ponce was the perfect place to establish a cement plant as the type of soil needed for cement production is abundant in the region. After founding the

Puerto Rico Iron Works Puerto Rico Iron Works (founded as ''Porto Rico Iron Works'') was a heavy industry iron foundry located in barrio La Playa in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The company was founded in 1918. The foundry "was Puerto Rico's most prolific steel bridge fabr ...

, and the El Dia newspaper, Empresas Ferre entered the construction business with Ponce Cement, Inc., and subsequently with Puerto Rican Cement, Inc.''Caribbean Business: Puerto Rico Grieves Over The Loss Of Its Premier Statesman Four Months Short Of His 100th Birthday, Luis A. Ferre Aguayo (1904-2003).'' By Marialba Martinez. Puerto Rico Herald. 30 October 2003
Retrieved 27 November 2009. Over the 1940s, the company enlarged and

Luis A. Ferre Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

became its chief engineer. By 1960, the company had become the leading cement supplier on the island, much of it the result of increasing new highway and housing construction projects spreading throughout the Island.

Approvals

On 23 February 1989 the Ponce Cement plant received approval for conversion from a wet to a dry manufacturing process, which allowed it to almost double its output. As of year 2000, cement was Puerto Rico's leading nonfuel mineral commodity.

References

External links

''Geologic map of the Ponce Quadrangle.''
R.D. Krushensky and W.H. Monroe. IMAP 863. U.S. Department of The Interior. United States Geological Survey. 1971. Accessed 6 December 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ponce Cement Companies based in Ponce, Puerto Rico Cement companies of Puerto Rico 1941 establishments in Puerto Rico Barrio Magueyes Urbano Limestone industry Manufacturing companies established in 1941 2002 mergers and acquisitions

History

Approvals

See also

References

Further reading

External links