Hauling fly ash in Austin and Houston area

I've hauled fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Rockdale, San Antonio, La Grange, and Jewett to ready-mix concrete plants all over South Texas.

 

I dunno about Texas but here in PA fly ash is about a half a step up from pulling rail containers. What hurts us here, and I'd guess it's similar in parts of Texas, is the natural gas industry.

When the Marcellus shale boom happened back a few years ago, everyone around here ran out and bought a pneumatic tank. Then came the bust, and all those people were looking for work for their tanks. Seems fly ash was their answer. Then hauling flyash, rates became a race to the bottom. It got pretty ugly with people cutting rates and such.

The company I work for was pretty safe from that. Our customers at the time used some flyash, but not enough that anybody was looking to take the work from us. We did get involved in a shuttle run from West Virginia to Harrisburg one winter when our work was slow. Wasn't hardly worth starting the truck for the cheap rates but the boss stuck it out and kept everyone working

 

So you bought the truck without getting these answers before?

Profit margin is figured with your operating expenses.

 

All three of those products are consumed by ready-mix concrete plants, so you should definitely become friendly with those folks if you're not already. You should probably also become friendly with the distribution coordinators at the power plants and rock quarries.

Boral used to be big in the fly ash business but they sold out to a company called Eco Material Technologies. You might reach out to them, I think they operate several locations in your general area.