Limestone, cement and concrete: how their price indexes compare

Stone, cement and concrete are sold in separate markets. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a producer price index for each, so we can see how a raw material and the products made from it have moved against each other.

The four indexes

• Crushed and broken limestone mining, base December 1983.
• Construction sand and gravel mining, base June 1982.
• Cement manufacturing, base June 1982.
• Ready-mix concrete manufacturing, base June 1981.

Each index is set to 100 in its own base month, so the levels cannot be compared. A limestone reading of 528.8 next to a cement reading of 352.4 does not mean limestone costs more. Only the percentage changes can be compared.

Ten years to August 2026

• Limestone: up 83.7%.
• Construction sand and gravel: up 81.8%.
• Ready-mix concrete: up 55.9%.
• Cement: up 49.9%.

The two stone indexes rose by more than 80%. The cement and concrete indexes rose by 50 to 56%.

The last twelve months

Against August 2025, construction sand and gravel is up 6.8%, limestone up 6.1% and ready-mix concrete up 2.3%. Cement is down 1.2%.

Cement has gone flat

The cement index averaged 349.5 across 2024 and 355.2 across 2025, and reads 352.4 for August 2026. That is 0.9% above its 2024 average. Its highest reading since 2007 was 357.2, in September 2025.

Limestone over the same stretch went from a 2024 average of 465.3 to 528.8, up 13.7%, and the latest reading is its highest since 2007.

What the indexes cannot explain

They show what moved, not why. Cement and concrete have their own costs and demand, and stone has its own supply pressures. Our note on stone prices since 2021 covers what the USGS says about stone. Treat any explanation of the gap, ours included, as a guess.

The newest readings are preliminary and the BLS can revise them. All four indexes follow US producers, so they are benchmarks for the wider market and not Nigerian prices.