Skip to main content

Boom in Morocco's road construction materials

The strong road construction market in Morocco is helping boost the quarrying market in the country substantially. One such operation exists near the town of Ben Slimane, situated north of Casablanca. Agregat Oued Cherrat (AOC) owns a 65ha quarry, one of the largest of the 14 in the region and when the firm decided to buy new excavators, it also opted to buy Hitachi machines. AOC placed an order for one ZX330-3, with the second delivered three months later and the company now has three ZX330-3s, with a four
April 10, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSThe strong road construction market in Morocco is helping boost the quarrying market in the country substantially. One such operation exists near the town of Ben Slimane, situated north of Casablanca. Agregat Oued Cherrat (AOC) owns a 65ha quarry, one of the largest of the 14 in the region and when the firm decided to buy new excavators, it also opted to buy 233 Hitachi machines. AOC placed an order for one ZX330-3, with the second delivered three months later and the company now has three ZX330-3s, with a fourth on order. Blasting is carried out every day yielding some 7,000tonnes/day and this is then loaded on to AOC's fleet of 17 trucks. In the past the site has produced 1,000,000 million tonnes/year and it is hoped that the annual output will increase to 1.8million tonnes by the end of this year with the new Hitachi machines.

The trucks unload the material into the separator, which removes the limestone from the soil. The limestone then moves on to the three primary crushers while the soil is used to refill the site. The heaps from the primary crushers are then processed through the three secondary crushers, after which the materials are further separated by two units into four different sizes of aggregates: from 0-3mm to 15-25mm.

Around 30% of the materials are delivered to companies over an average distance of 80km, but the majority is collected by customers. Some 80% of AOC's business is in the concrete sector and the remainder is dedicated to supplying aggregates to the expanding road construction market.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Recycling materials
    February 6, 2012
    A demolition contractor in the UK is broadening its operations with a new recycled aggregates business.
  • Mason Brothers keeps on crushing with Sandvik in Wales
    December 20, 2018
    A mobile crushing, screening and scalping train from Sandvik is playing a key role in ensuring that Welsh quarry business Mason Brothers meets customers’ demands. Family business Mason Brothers Quarry Products has a long-standing relationship with Sandvik which goes back to the 1990s, said Alun Mason, managing director of Mason Brothers. The wide range of products produced at the quarry ranges from type 1 sub-base to ornamental and building stone. The company also supplies volumetric concrete, concret
  • An array of crushing and screening innovations was presented at the recent INTERMAT 2012 exhibition
    July 19, 2012
    The crushing and screening phase is a crucial component in aggregate production and new development will help optimise performance - Mike Woof reports Crushing and screening is a key part of the quarrying cycle and has a huge impact on overall operating performance. Optimising operations will cut running costs, reduce materials wastage and also provide a more consistent product quality, boosting cost-effectiveness dramatically. An array of innovations were revealed to the market at the recent INTERMAT 2012
  • State-of-the art road tunnels in construction and use of ITS
    April 25, 2013
    A wealth of major road tunnel construction projects and significant cant ITS installations within existing key road tunnels have been recently completed or will soon be underway. Guy Woodford examines some of them. A state-of-the art Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) - the 10th largest ever to be built worldwide will be put to work later this year on New Zealand Transport Agency’s landmark Waterview Connection project in Auckland. The giant Herrenknecht-manufactured machine will be used to construct the twin 2.5