Cemex statement<br>
December 4, 2005<br>
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Cemex Inc. officials declined to be interviewed for this story. They issued the following statement: 
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"The three cement manufacturing plants that you have requested information on (New Braunfels, Texas; Odessa, Texas; and Lyons) are each operated in an environmentally compliant and sensitive manner. 
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In addition, each of the plants you have referenced are plants that have historically operated well from an operational perspective, and continue to do so. Typically, during the course of a year, cement manufacturing plants have planned outages for maintenance purposes that average one to three weeks in duration. In addition, there are occasions where unplanned outages occur. 
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The cement manufacturing process is a complex one, and unanticipated outages do occasionally occur. When these unplanned outages occur, Cemex takes every possible precaution and works proactively to minimize environmental impact, if any, from these outages. Our plants across the United States, taking into account planned and unplanned outages, operate between 89 percent and 95 percent of the available hours in a year."