Invested In Quality

Quarry Mining manufactures and installs a wide range of plants for the quarry and minerals sector from its base in Ras Al Khaimah. Despite pandemic disruptions, 2020 was the busiest year in the company’s history, says Managing Director Moritz Kerler.

As the construction industry in Dubai boomed in the mid-2000s, demand for aggregates was at an all-time high, supplied mainly from quarries in Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. Since then, as demand has dropped off, many quarries have closed down - according to one estimate, only 80 quarries are operating compared with 200 at the peak. There’s also been rising demand for high specification materials for industrial plants - such as steel factories in India - and other applications, demand that only sophisticated operators can meet.

Many quarries have also been shut down for environmental reasons, especially if they didn’t invest in functioning dedusting plants or stockpile encapsulation.

For Moritz Kerler, Managing Director of Quarry Mining LLC, it illustrates a key fact for quarries, mines and businesses more generally: that to stay ahead they need to be constantly investing in new plant and equipment, improve products and processes, and be ready to meet any changes in the market.

“We can see the same thing here that we have seen in Europe and in other markets. The big grow much bigger, and many small ones disappear. This is how it is, especially in the minerals business: if you don’t go big, you have no chance,” he says.

Moritz Kerler, Managing Director of Quarry Mining LLC.

Kerler has been selling plant to mines and quarries in the region since 1975. Quarry Mining, which is based in Ras Al Khaimah specialises in manufacturing of plant including conveyors, feeders, steel support structures, and the installation of plants for quarries and mines.

The company works with partners including Kleemann (mobile crushers), Thyssen Krupp, and other European OEMs (primarily German), and has a joint venture with Stiebel for gear motors. In addition to manufacturing a large range of steel products at their factory, they also assemble some products on site, including the Stiebel gear motors, which saves the import tax for GCC companies.

Outside of the UAE, the company has an office in Ras Al-Khair, the Minerals Industrial City north of Jubail in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, while it has provided plant to major projects across the Middle East and Africa – recently that includes Jordan and Tanzania.

When it comes to winning projects, the focus on quality is what gets them across the line. Kerler says they are focused on what the customer wants and will use the equipment best suited to their requirements, whichever brand it is, rather than always looking to sell one particular brand. “We only offer that product with which our client can make best product and by that best profit.”

“Quality is always on top,” says Kerler. “If we design and sell a plant, we want that plant to work for 30-50 years ago, not only 14 or 15 years, like some of our competitors do. We are focused on quality.”

They offer both ‘standard’ and custom plants for quarries, but as Kerler notes, in the UAE today there is almost no thing as a standard solution anymore, since most sites want very specific plants as quarries must be able to meet a wide variety of demands.

“In the good old days the demand was for the sand, 5-10 10-20, that time is over because the market became more demanding and more competitive. Now to produce your product at a reasonable cost, you need to have different aggregate sizes to compete. Those quarries who did their homework and introduced new products, they do the business now,” says Kerler.

He sees big demand for grades such as 30-60, 40-80, 50- 100, mainly required for Indian steel plants. Because they calcine the rock in the kiln it has to be a very specific quality – suppliers will be penalized if the rocks don’t meet the standards, as this will increase energy costs for the factories.

Apart from industrial applications, producing special designed sand is another growing business area. “If you want to produce that high quality sand you need very specific machinery and screens to produce it. This is a kind of niche business, and there we are quite successful,” he says.

Beyond the UAE, Kerler sees KSA as a big opportunity, as the Kingdom makes major investments into its mineral and mining industry as part of its drive to diversify its economy away from oil – not to mention that the country has rich mineral deposits, unlike the UAE. Their office in Ras Al-Khair, with workers incountry on Saudi work visas, and Kerler’s connections in the country, means they are set up to do business there and have already won a number of projects.

“Mining is next huge big opportunity for [Saudi Arabia] because they are not only blessed with oil and gas, they’re also blessed with minerals,” he says.

The company is also increasingly focused on meeting demand in Africa, where the buyers are looking for standard plants, says Kerler. “We have products that can meet every price segment,” he notes. With a sufficient work-force – in total, ranging between 130-170 people, with more than 30 staff working just on installation and commissioning, the company can also operate at a much lower cost than a European company. With technicians sometimes on site for up to a year, the company is “very flexible in the scope of work,” he says.

They recently completed the installation of a plant to manufacture gypsum board in Tanzania, which included crusher, conveyors, steel and duct work and silos. In addition to the installation of their plant, they also carried out additional work on-site, since the workers from other companies could not reach the site due to travel restrictions. “Africa is definitely a major market for us for the future,” says Kerler.

For all the business disruptions of 2020, this year was the busiest they’ve ever been, says Kerler. To minimize the impact of COVID-19, he took all their staff out of shared accommodation, and moved them into temporary accommodation on their site, while they built a new threestory dormitory to house 72 staff, since completed. So far they haven’t had a single case of Corona among the workers, something that has helped them meet all their project delivery deadlines, and even helped win them new work, with some government procurement processes particularly focused on HSE this year.

Quarry Mining has extensive experience fabricating and installing plants for quarries and mines.

Saving costs on-site

Quarry Mining has a long association with Stevin Rock and sister company RAK Rock, having carried out major works at the two sites, which together are one of the largest quarrying companies in the world. The emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, which owns the quarries, is also a shareholder in Quarry Mining.

At Stevin Rock, the largest quarry in the Middle East, the company has installed a series of conveyors that can take material down the hill at the rate of 3,000, 3500 and 4500 tonnes an hour, including capturing the braking energy and feeding it into the natural grid. Currently Quarry Mining is getting set to install an additional 1.4km of conveyors there.

With site dumpers making up a major cost for a quarry or mine, especially tyres and the diesel, using conveyors can produce major savings for a site, though the initial investment means it will take several years for the savings to be realized. In the case of Stevin Rock, the site has been able to gradually reduce its total dumper fleet each year, even as it has scaled up production, says Kerler. The use of conveyors rather than trucks also has a positive environmental impact.

The company is also set to work on the upgrade of infrastructure at sea ports in Ras Al Khaimah.

Speaking at the end of 2020, Kerler says they’re gearing up for an even bigger year in 2021. The company is making a series of major investments in their manufacturing capabilities, adding three new large CNC control machines to automate some of the production and improve quality, and a new sandblast plant and paint shop, which will improve quality, provide a better, safer working conditions for factory staff, and be more environmentally friendly.

Currently they are waiting for an assessor to grant them the EN 1090 Factory Production Control (FPC) standard, which would allow them to stamp the EC designation on their products – the process has been delayed by the pandemic, but Kerler is optimistic they will soon receive this prestigious designation from TÜV Rheinland.

Of the factory upgrades, these will result in a better end product with higher quality, says Kerler. “If you don’t do your homework in this field, you will be left on the side, I see it with my major customers - they invest every year. So it’s clear: if you want to sustain your business your quality must get better and your working processes must become more modern.”