About Reed Minerals

Company Overview

Reed Minerals is the world's largest manufacturer of high quality, inert, low free silica coal slag blasting abrasives. Reed is also the third largest manufacturer of roofing granules utilized in residential roofing applications. Reed services these and other applications with the well-known BLACK BEAUTY® abrasives and roofing granule product lines.

BLACK BEAUTY® abrasives are used in a broad range of industries and applications to remove surface coatings and contaminants such as rust, paint and scale from structures. These structures include bridges, ships, water tanks, off shore drilling rigs, oil field equipment, marine equipment, railcars, and steel machinery to name a few. Reed customers large and small specify BLACK BEAUTY® abrasives for their low free silica content and friability. These intrinsic attributes coupled with its high quality, consistent gradation, control during application and wide availability have made BLACK BEAUTY® abrasives number one in the marketplace.

BLACK BEAUTY® roofing granules can be found throughout the asphalt shingle, modified bitumen and foam urethane industries. These products include shingle headlap, backsurfacing, mineral surfacing, and GRANDURA® colored granules. Reed's proprietary manufacturing processes help tailor these products to provide optimum strength, performance, and longevity for our roofing customers.

America's First Recycler

Reed Minerals was founded over 70 years ago as the original, innovative, green recycling company in the roofing granule and blasting abrasives industries. We currently service all the major power generating utility facilities throughout the United States, removing their coal combustion by-products and recycling them as commercialized BLACK BEAUTY® coal slag products which include abrasives, asphalt roofing granules, water filtration media, sealcoat aggregates and nonskid coatings. We are committed to the ongoing identification of emerging and acceptable uses for coal combustion by-products. Our Technology Center, opened in 1999, oversees the company's quality control and research and development operations.

Extensive Production, Marketing and Distribution Network

With headquarters in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Reed operates fifteen BLACK BEAUTY® production facilities in twelve states and processes 1.9 million tons of coal slag per year. We manage a rail fleet of 600 cars for outbound shipments, making BLACK BEAUTY® abrasive products widely available nationwide. Reed markets BLACK BEAUTY® abrasives to a vast array of customers through an extensive network of distributors, resellers and end users, which include coatings contractors, original equipment manufacturers, municipalities, water filtration plants, floor tile manufacturers, and container manufacturers. Large purchasers are serviced by our direct national account sales team and/or our strategic distribution network.

We Are A Division of Harsco Corporation, a $3.7 Billion, Multi-National Corporation

Reed Minerals is a division of Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC), a leading Fortune 1000 global industrial services and engineered products company with 21,000 employees and operations in 45 countries around the world. With worldwide growth, solid business strategies and strong earnings, Harsco is well positioned to apply its resources to maximize our successes in manufacturing technologies, customer services and solutions. Harsco's investments in new plants and equipment, efficiencies in global purchasing, strong internal controls and standards of corporate governance ensure Reed's continued industry leadership.

Innovative Abrasives Industry Leader For Over 70 Years

Reed Minerals has its foundations in the 1930's when the late H.B. Reed, an entrepreneur from northern Indiana, saw opportunity in the unsightly, unwanted and ever growing piles of coal slag in his region. The slag was produced as a by-product of burning coal and was something to be thrown away, buried or dumped into available landfills as a liability. When his attempts to make the slag into insulation failed, Reed turned to the roofing industry. He discovered a process that recycled the electric utility coal slag into aesthetically pleasing, competitively priced roofing granules and, shortly thereafter, low free silica blasting abrasives. The two products were successful, and the H.B. Reed Co. was born.

Reed opened its first major production plant in 1951 in Gary, Indiana. In 1969, Reed opened its second major plant in Kearny, New Jersey. The opening of this plant marked the beginning of a long period of expansion, during which Reed added eight new BLACK BEAUTY® coal slag abrasive and granule production facilities in fourteen years. In 1983, H.B. Reed Co. was acquired by Harsco Corporation and became Reed Minerals, a unit of what was then Harsco's Heckett MultiServ Division. The Reed plant located in Drakesboro, KY opened in 1988 with the next step in granule production: a semi-ceramic, colored coating applied to the basic black granules to make GRANDURA® colored roofing granules.