Shareholder Information
Lime and Limestone Operations. The Company, through its Lime and Limestone Operations, is a manufacturer of lime and limestone products, supplying primarily the construction (including highway, road and building contractors), metals (including steel producers), environmental (including municipal sanitation and water treatment facilities and flue gas treatment processes), oil and gas services, industrial (including paper and glass manufacturers), roof shingle and agriculture (including poultry and cattle feed producers) industries. The Company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and operates lime and limestone plants and distribution facilities in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Arkansas Lime Company, Colorado Lime Company, Texas Lime Company, U.S. Lime Company, U.S. Lime Company—Shreveport, U.S. Lime Company—St. Clair and U.S. Lime Company—Transportation.
The Company extracts high-quality limestone from its open-pit quarries and underground mine and then processes it for sale as pulverized limestone, quicklime, hydrated lime and lime slurry. Pulverized limestone (also referred to as ground calcium carbonate — "PLS") is a dried product ground to granular and finer sizes. Quicklime (calcium oxide) is produced by heating limestone to very high temperatures in kilns in a process called calcination. Hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) is produced by reacting quicklime with water in a controlled process. Lime slurry (milk of lime) is a suspended solution of calcium hydroxide produced by mixing quicklime with water in a lime slaker.
PLS is used in the production of construction materials such as roof shingles and asphalt paving, as an additive to agriculture feeds, in the production of glass, as a soil enhancement, in flue gas treatment for utilities and other industries requiring scrubbing of emissions for environmental purposes and for mine safety dust in coal mining operations. Quicklime is used primarily in metal processing, in flue gas treatment, in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction, as well as for oilfield roads and drill sites, in the manufacturing of paper products and in sanitation and water treatment systems. Hydrated lime is used primarily in municipal sanitation and water treatment, in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction, in flue gas treatment, in asphalt as an anti-stripping agent, as a conditioning agent for oil and gas drilling mud, in the production of chemicals and in the production of construction materials such as stucco, plaster and mortar. Lime slurry is used primarily in soil stabilization for highway, road and building construction.
Natural Gas Interests. The Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary, U.S. Lime Company — O & G, LLC ("U.S. Lime O & G"), has royalty interests ranging from 15.4% to 20% and a 20% non-operating working interest with respect to oil and gas rights on the Company's approximately 3,800 acres of land located in Johnson County, Texas, in the Barnett Shale Formation. These interests are derived from the Company's May 2004 oil and gas lease agreement (the "O & G Lease") with EOG Resources, Inc. ("EOG") with respect to oil and gas rights on its Cleburne, Texas property, that will continue so long as EOG is continuously developing, or producing natural gas from, the leased property as set forth in the O & G Lease. The Company's overall average revenue interest is 34.8% in all 31 wells covered by the O & G Lease.
In November 2006, through U.S. Lime O & G, the Company entered into a drillsite and production facility lease agreement and subsurface easement (the "Drillsite Agreement") with XTO Energy Inc. ("XTO"), which has an oil and gas lease covering approximately 538 acres of land contiguous to the Company's Johnson County, Texas property. Pursuant to the Drillsite Agreement, the Company receives a 3% royalty interest and a 12.5% working interest, resulting in a 12% revenue interest, in any XTO wells drilled from two pad sites located on the Company's property.
General. The Company's authorized share capital consists of 15,000,000 common shares of $0.10 par value and 500,000 preferred shares of $5.00 par value. Approximately 5,600,000 common shares are currently outstanding. No preferred shares have been issued.
The common shares are traded on the NASDAQ Global Market® under the symbol "USLM."
Listing of Section 16 ownership forms filled by insiders may be found
here.
US Lime's Corporate Governance information may be found
here.
Full details of the Company's operations and financial condition can be obtained from the 2015 Annual Report and Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015. Please click
here to view our 2015 Annual Report. Recently issued SEC Filings and News Releases can be obtained directly by by clicking on the appropriate year in the drop down list for “Shareholder Information.”