Las Vegas Figure Plots First US Basalt Fiber Plant

Larry A. Stockett tells GlobeSt.com that it's a vision not just another industrial project. The goal is to revolutionize the building materials world by mining and converting lava rock to balsamic fiber for commercial and residential use. Stockett's grandiose plan calls the initial 10-acre buy, acquiring 275 acres for the second phase and ultimately cutting a deal with the BLM for 15,000 Hidden Valley acres to be built out as a water-themed, master-planned community as land is reclaimed. It will take, he says, up to one year for the start and better than a decade for the project to go full circle.

Stockett is president of Hightec and its subsidiaries, US Cement and Basalt Industries Inc. plus the Sinclare Group Inc. and IPO Network. The business dealings run the gamut from a Las Vegas tourist train that's on hold to actively positioning the four-year-old US Cement to receive its first cement shipment from Asia.

Stockett, a self-professed IPO expert, hopes to close on the Las Vegas land in 60 days. He plans to seek an expedited OK from municipal officials for the first phase–three monolithic domes earmarked for a 43,000-sf visitors' center and two 20,000-sf pods for manufacturing and showroom space. If all goes well, it could be on line by year's end.

Within a month, Stockett says he will have $5 million in equity and a $15-million credit line in place for the venture. He is courting strategic partners to buy 40% of the Basalt subsidiary. Meanwhile, he is mining the fiber and steel industries for key executives who, he says, will announce their exits this week to join the Hightec-Basalt hierarchy.

"We are going to be a big name on Wall Street whether you want to believe it or not," Steve Pardy, a major Hightec stockholder from Arlington, TX, tells GlobeSt.com. "I am the kind of person who looks for things that look good from an investment standpoint." The former lawn care company owner hooked up with Stockett's entrepreneurial venture about a year ago.

Stockett's Las Vegas lifestyle and business dealings, successes as well as failures, have put him in the limelight on several occasions. In recent years, he was sanctioned by the SEC, fined and collaterally barred from the securities profession; was a prosecution witness in the homicide trial of former Horseshoe casino operator, Ted Binion; and now is at the forefront of a pending take-over as chairman and CEO for Las Vegas' Metalclad Corp., an insulation and asbestos abatement operation. He wants to merge two Metalclad subsidiaries with his newly formed Basalt Fiber Industries Inc. and Tri-Square Manufacturing Inc., a 15-year-old asbestos abatement business. Stockett insists Metalclad is "not part of our $5-million equity and $15-million debt financing." About a year ago, a plan fell through to sell Hightec's controlling interest to Inter Oil Gulf of London and Hong Kong in a $20-million stock exchange.

At the crux of the business moves is the Las Vegas project for a self-contained community with built-in demand for basalt fiber products. Stockett believes 2005 will bring building standards changes to make basalt-laced products acceptable for US construction, a certain windfall for his company.

The Las Vegas project will use designs of the Monolithic Dome Institute of Italy, TX, 45 miles south of Dallas. The super-insulated, steel-reinforced concrete domes are used in 45 states and several foreign countries for everything from single-family homes to large-scale storage.

Wright Engineers of Las Vegas is tasked with the master site plan and commercial feasibility and engineering studies for Stockett's manufacturing plant, which will be fully constructed from US Cement and Basalt Industries products.

Should Stockett pull off the first phase that comes with a dome house for himself, the plant will be able to produce 10 million tons annually of basalt fiber rebar and other 20 other products. First off the line will be basalt fiber-based rebar and spools of thread. The technology comes from Ukraine and Russian scientists who immigrated to the US and are part of Stockett's team. Basalt rebar supposedly is one-fifth the price of steel, three times as strong, one-third the weight and non-corrosive. The project area has 15,000 acres of lava flow in a vein that runs 2,000 feet deep, according to Stockett.

The lava rock will be mined from a five-acre site to a depth of 10 feet. Then, the quarry will be filled in with water and the process repeated when he gets more land. Stockett says a series of lakes will evolve that will be attractive for commercial and residential development. "We have created a project with enough scale as an experimental city of the future that if we never get the accepted national standards changes that we can get an exemption and sell to our own project," he asserts.