Cement Shortage on Guam

Cement shortage hinders projects
Monday March 31, 2008
By Zita Y. Taitano
Variety News Staff

A NUMBER of construction projects may be delayed because of the low amount of cement that is available on island.

Various contractors have complained to Variety that the island is suffering from a scarcity of cement resulting in the virtual standstill of many important construction projects.

Leonard K. Kaae, senior vice president for Black Construction Corp., said that in fact there has been no cement for a little more than 10 days. Kaae said that because of this, it has become difficult for them to follow the timeline needed to complete construction projects.

Kaae said the supplier for the island receives the cement from Japan, as well as Taiwan and China.

"We've been out of cement over the last three months three times since January and last year we were out of cement on three occasions," he said.

"When we were building Home Depot, the island ran out of cement on three separate occasions," he added.

The situation, Kaae said, has already begun to affect the company's employees.

"With reference to construction, the one major component that is required is concrete and the single most important component to concrete is cement. So without cement, basically you come to a real standstill and this has a major impact on our employees. What do you with all these people if you can't pour concrete," he said.

He did note that measures are already being implemented to remedy the situation and hopefully the island will have an adequate supply of cement soon.