Lafarge North America has announced it is to close one of the two kiln lines at its Joppa plant in southern Illinois and lay off about 40 workers.
The move, reported by local media, has been attributed to weakening demand. A spokesperson for Lafarge said that the cement market had not grown according to its expectations and thus the firm would scale back production.
In May 2016 Lafarge scrapped plans to add an extra kiln line at Joppa on the grounds that the two currently in operation were sufficient to meet market requirement.
