Article: Supply shortage hits asphalt industry hard

The asphalt business has hit a bump in the road.

Haskell Lemon Construction Co. has been in business for about 60 years, said Vice President Bob Lemon. He's seen prices for construction materials go up and down. But before this summer, he had never seen a shortage of asphalt materials.

Then again, no one has ever seen oil at more than $130 a barrel, or gasoline prices so close to $4 per gallon. Prices on all products made using oil have skyrocketed as well.

"We've done some scrambling," said Lemon.

"For an asphalt company, that's not a good thing to run out of asphalt."

The company gets oil from local refineries and mixes it with rocks and sand to produce asphalt, which is provided to ...

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