O F F T H E M AT
Predict Your Asphalt Cost BY SANDY LENDER
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idding July 2022 a project your crew will perform September 2023 requires additional antacid when liquid asphalt cement (AC) prices are rising dramatically. We all understand the concept of bidding low enough to win the job but high enough to not only recover costs, but also to make a profit. Brian Lawrence, the president of Asphalt Unlimited LLC, Kennesaw, Georgia, has developed an app designed to forecast future liquid asphalt prices to assist contractors in bidding without guessing the future price. It’s designed to help asphalt producers and highway contractors bid future work, particularly in states or in instances where price escalators don’t exist. Yes, we asked the questions. Lawrence recently retired as a senior vice president from C.W. Matthews Contracting, where he worked for 21 years, and was chief operating officer for Bright Star Energy (liquid asphalt purchasing), for 13 years. He created Bright Star’s liquid asphalt business, which included design and operation of a green field asphalt terminal in Rockmart, Georgia. He also negotiated the successful purchase of an asphalt terminal in Chattanooga, Tennessee. During his career, he has purchased more than 2 million tons of liquid asphalt on a wholesale and retail basis via truck, rail, and brown-water barges. He has also produced more
This graph shows the high degree of correlation between existing, real data and the algorithm Brian Lawrence developed. Graph courtesy of Asphalt Unlimited LLC
than 260,000 tons of polymer-modified asphalt and has bid more than 7,000 asphalt projects. In July 2008, he began his data collection that let him do more than track trends. It let him study reams of data, and that will come into play in a moment.
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