LT120 offering increased performance in basalt mining

The origin of today's Reinhard Group dates back to 1927, when it was founded by the great-grandfather of today's managing directors Marco and Ralf Reinhard. After starting up as a forwarding agency with an affiliated coal trading company in Groß-Zimmern, the entrepreneurial orientation shifted decisively with the acquisition of the Balduinstein basalt plant 13 years ago: In addition to the logistics division of the group of companies, which today has 80 employees, a commercial vehicle workshop company, and a port handling operation on the Rhine, it is in particular the opencast basalt mining of RF Sand-Baggerarbeiten und Steingewinnungsgesellschaft mbH that is steadily gaining in importance for the group of companies thanks to the market requirements.

"Our aspiration has always been to cover the entire value chain," explains Marco Reinhard, who, alongside his brother Ralf Reinhard, as managing director, is primarily responsible for the commercial aspects of the company. "On the 56 hectares of our opencast basalt mine near Diez, which we acquired about 13 years ago, we produce, among other things, chippings for the concrete industry.  

However, our focus at the site is clearly on the extraction and processing of basalt. Basalt boards, pavers for indoor and outdoor use and gravestones are manufactured here, as are armourstones, which are also in great demand nationwide due to the particularly advantageous properties of the natural stones being mined here. Other major customers for our bulk materials can be found in road construction, the concrete and asphalt industries, as well as in landscape gardening. In addition, we also operate a transshipment terminal for excavated earth and various bulk materials here."

Reliability and high output with LT120

The basalt extracted from the Balduinstein opencast mine has an extremely high bulk density, which is why it is suitable, among other things, for applications on the Rhine, Main and Moselle rivers for bank or slope stabilization. Armourstones from the traditional plant are also supplied as wave breakers to the Dutch coast or to more distant regions.

Due to the unique properties of the local basalt, such as its high abrasion resistance, resilience and acid resistance, and the resulting increase in demand, it was decided to use a more powerful mobile primary crusher to increase throughput. After an intensive testing phase, the investment decision was taken in favor of a Metso Outotec LT120, which has been produced almost 1,000 times worldwide and has already proven itself in a wide range of applications. Metso Outotec's authorized dealer Fischer-Jung Aufbereitungstechnik from Krefeld set the course for this.

"Shortly after contacting Marco Reinhard, we got an in-depth picture of his operation's requirements for a primary crusher, as well as of the local conditions," explains Ralph Phlippen, managing director at Fischer-Jung Aufbereitungstechnik.  

"To meet the desire for a significant increase in throughput and to enable the feeding of large quantities of abrasive natural stone at once, our recommendation clearly leaned toward the Lokotrack LT120 mobile jaw crusher. The feed opening and hopper volume of this plant are very generously dimensioned and provide the necessary capacity to process approximately 200-250 tons of basalt per hour."

Fischer-Jung initially provided the jaw crusher to the opencast basalt mine for testing purposes for a period of two months. This gave Marco Reinhard and his team, who rely exclusively on mobile processing plants within the site, opportunity to test the LT120 in interaction with existing units such as the fine crusher and screening plant.

"We are very satisfied with both the primary crusher and the service provided by Fischer-Jung," concludes Marco Reinhard. "You can tell that, here, we are in the native territory of Ralph Phlippen and his team, since they are not only competent but also always on site at very short notice if wear parts are ever needed."