First crusher innovation in the Eifel region – Expansion of the Lokotrack® series from Metso Outotec in Germany

Its core business expanded over time to include a rental and transport company that operates beyond regional borders. In 2017, Bierbrauer & Sohn continued to add to its portfolio with the acquisition of basalt and lava plant Terratec-Basalt GmbH.

With a history of taking on demanding application challenges, Bierbrauer & Sohn is now considered Germany’s largest operator of Metso Outotec mobile crushing and screening plants. Over the past few years, between 35 and 40 Lokotracks® are said to have been used at the Kretz depot and the nearby quarry.

A successful entrepreneur charged with improving operating efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the face of rising fuel prices, Managing Director Karl-Werner Bierbrauer recently became aware of Metso Outotec’s newest Lokotrack® LT220GP™ mobile cone crusher. Together with Metso Outotec's long-standing supplier and service partner for technologies, Fischer-Jung Aufbereitungstechnik GmbH, it was decided to visit the new machine directly at the Finnish factory in Tampere. After a successful presentation, Bierbrauer decided to use the plant at his quarry in Ettringen, making it the first LT220GP™ delivery in Europe. Fischer-Jung has already been working exclusively for Bierbrauer's group of companies for ten years.

“We have already been using the LT220GP as a secondary crusher since January”, explains the Product Manager Ralf Beissel. “After delivery, our dealer and service partner, Fischer-Jung Aufbereitungstechnik, immediately took care of the commissioning and on-site instruction. The cone crusher itself is particularly impressive thanks to its versatility and high throughput. On the one hand, there is the active pre-screening, which classifies fractions into 0/16 or 0/32 mm, which are not even fed into the crushing circuit. The extracted fines prevent premature wear of the crushing tools and thus unnecessary interruptions in operation,” Beissel explains. “On the other hand, we obtain a product that can be sold immediately while maintaining the process stability of the plant. With a standalone mobile screening plant such as the Lokotrack ST4.8, you get 8/16 or 16/32 material.”

Beissel continues: “The throughput of the LT220GP is largely dependent on the primary crusher used. For the time being, the LT106 jaw crusher from Metso Outotec is used here at our plant, with which we achieve a production volume of approximately 2,000 tons in 0/45 grain size per day in this setup."

A Metso Outotec Nordberg® HP200™ series cone crusher has been operating at Terratec-Basalt. The addition of the LT220GP™ mobile cone crusher is expected to almost match the throughput level of an LT300HP™. This success experienced to date has led Terratec-Basalt to consider a larger primary crusher, such as the LT120 jaw crusher, which would significantly increase productivity even further.

Bierbrauer is satisfied with the work of the new cone crusher: "With the LT220GP, we are able to process four fractions with the additional use of a screening plant. The flexibility of the track-mounted plant has proven to be a great advantage at our quarry in Ettringen right from the start, enabling us to work faster and more effectively. We are convinced that by using the same primary crusher with the LT220GP, we can achieve a significant increase in performance, produce more fractions in this way, and thus work even more economically. At this point, we must also highlight the support service provided by Fischer-Jung Aufbereitungstechnik, under the management of Ralph Phlippen, with whom we have been working closely for such a long time—be it in the availability of wear and spare parts, the provision of service engineers, or the commissioning of the new cone crusher itself."