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

  • Nigerian asphalt producer increasing capacity with Sandvik plant
    June 30, 2014
    In Nigeria a major asphalt producer is increasing production capacity to cope with growing demand for its materials Nigeria is developing its road and highway network, which has triggered greater demand for quality aggregates and asphalt for construction. Producer Asphalt Unity Construction is now meeting this demand with its purchase of new mobile equipment from Sandvik Construction.
  • Long hours in Yorkshire, UK, for Doosan’s latest machines
    August 21, 2015
    Heavy-duty quarry work is the order of the day for new Doosan DX420LC-3 and DX340LC-3 crawler excavators, together with two new DL550-3 and three new DL420-3 wheel loaders. Wentvalley Aggregates & Recycling in county Yorkshire in the UK purchased the machines for its Wentbridge site where they work alongside other generation machines, the Doosan DL450 wheel loader and Doosan DX225LC excavator. The quarry supplies limestone products, including single-size and all primary blended products from crusher runs
  • Morocco extraction site service capability
    July 15, 2016
    Phosphate extraction is carried out on a huge scale in Morocco in harsh, hot and often remote locations. Servicing this equipment is no easy task given the conditions, with special machines having to be used Phosphate is in high demand. It is used in fertilizer, detergent and food additives. However its fastest growing market is in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, now being used widely for commercial goods as well as electric vehicles. As Morocco is the world's third-largest producer of phosphate
  • Sila's Sandvik Thai success
    July 17, 2012
    The Sila Sanon limestone quarry in Thailand is playing a key role in providing high quality aggregates for the growing Thai construction industry.Recently the family-owned operation has invested in a full range of crushing and screening plant supplied by Sandvik Construction’s dealer in Thailand, the William Wong Group, and the quarry is now able to supply over 200,000tonnes of accurately sized materials on a monthly basis. The Sila Sanon Quarry in Saraburi Province, just over 100km north of the capital Ba