New Röben plant in Texas: first batch of clay face bricks already fired
For more than 35 years now, the American company Triangle Brick Co. has been a member of the Röben Group. Located in Durham, North Carolina, Triangle Brick was acquired by Röben in 1979. With four plants in North Carolina, Triangle Brick counts among the east coast‘s major producers of face bricks and is one of the U.S. brick and tile industry‘s top ten companies.
Triangle Brick began construction on the new brick plant in Clay County, near Henrietta, Texas, in late 2014. Located a good 120 miles northwest of Dallas, this makes Röben‘s fifth plant on U.S. soil. It is designed for an annual output of 100 million modular-size bricks (corresponding to about 70 million German standard-size brick equivalent units). The new plant will eventually provide 45 new jobs in sales and production. The bricks produced are to be sold in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.
The new factory buildings were in place by June 2015 – just in time, too, considering that several weeks of the heaviest rains in the last 50 years soon followed. Right after the exterior walls went up and the roof put on, the kiln was installed along with the requisite machinery. The first load of clay was hauled out of the pit in September.
Installation of the unloading equipment had already commenced in August. The robots are set to unload 35 000 face bricks an hour from the kiln cars.
During the last week of November 2015, after just one year of construction, the first bricks were pressed and set. Finally, in January 2016, the first fired bricks emerged from the kiln. Regular production is scheduled to commence this spring.