A crushing plant inside a mountain, and Cemex's new sand plant
Frank AggregateA Norwegian producer quarries and crushes its rock inside a mountain, and Cemex has a new sand and gravel plant west of London.
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Quarry Manager · Cemex
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PH
General Manager · Sport Redi Mix
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Operations Manager · Komplet America
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KL
R&D Manager · MAJOR
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Watch: a quarry and crushing plant inside a mountain (13 minutes)
South of Bergen, FSG blasts, crushes and screens its rock inside the mountain, then turns each mined-out cavern into a landfill hall for contaminated soil.
On Wednesday CDE posted a 13 minute episode of its TalkingTons series from FSG in Rådal, south of Bergen, which produces 350,000 to 400,000 tonnes a year inside the mountain so the noise and dust stay away from its neighbours. The first blast was in 1999 and the crushing plant moved inside in 2001. New caverns are blasted at night, after the plant shuts down, and each finished one becomes a landfill hall. "The original plan was to survive," FSG's guide tells the hosts. "We could shut down, close the gate, go home, or we could do something else."
Watch: the plant Cemex built after a 15-year wait to dig (1:49)
Cemex's Shepperton reserve will last only four to five years, so it chose a modular McLanahan plant it can lift and move to the next site.
Last Friday McLanahan posted a video from Cemex's Shepperton quarry in West London, with quarry manager Bill Morris on camera, alongside a written case study. The reserve is 1.3 million tonnes, so Cemex chose a modular UltraWash plant with an UltraCRUSH cone that takes material from about 4 inches down to 63 microns and sends the oversize back through the crusher. "From the point of the actual commissioning, this plant has not missed a beat," says Wayne Strevens, Cemex's operations manager there, who has more than 40 years in the industry.
Three Eagle impactors, 3,500 tons a day, and a parts man who drives three hours
Sport Redi Mix crushes about 1,250 tons of concrete and 2,250 tons of asphalt a day with three Eagle UltraMax 1200 plants, 365 days a year.
Last week Eagle Crusher published a case study from Sport Redi Mix of Champaign, Illinois, whose recycled concrete and asphalt division runs two yards and a mobile crew every day of the year, and all three plants carry an Illinois DOT producer number. It bought a new UltraMax 1200 right off the show floor at CONEXPO-CON/AGG in 2014, and in 2025 general manager Patti Herges pre-booked a full year of work to win the case for a third. "The Eagle Crusher 1200 is built with easy access to where you have to get to things," she says, and Horton Supply's Pat Biggs "even makes the three-hour drive to deliver us the parts."
Read the Sport Redi Mix case study
How to dial in a jaw crusher's closed side setting
Treat the setting as one input to a range of sizes, not a ceiling, and scalp out the fines before they reach the jaw.
On Thursday Komplet America published a long guide to the closed side setting by Cody Price, its operations manager, written for contractors and recyclers running compact jaws. The product off the belt is always a spread from dust to a top size above the setting, so Price works back from the specification to a starting setting at or slightly below the target size. A jaw is generally worked to about six to one, a six inch piece to roughly one inch. Material already smaller than the target should be scalped out first, through an opening no larger than the setting, because it only adds wear and packing.
Read the closed side setting guide
MAJOR adds polyurethane dams for wet screening
A 1.5 inch polyurethane barrier, up to 82 inches long, holds water in the wash zone longer so clay, silt and fines come off the rock.
On Tuesday MAJOR added polyurethane dams to its FLEX-MAT screen media accessories. The dam runs from hook to hook with 45 degree ends so the tension bar can still grab the hook, and it slows material on wet decks so the spray water has longer to work. Dams have usually been rubber, polyurethane or steel-reinforced hybrids that wear out early in a corrosive wash plant. "When our customers asked for a screen media dam with the quality and robustness FLEX-MAT is known for, we responded by developing an option with our specialized polyurethane blend," says Kevin Laporte, MAJOR's R&D manager.
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