Boral partners with Metso to build Sydney's future

Due to the anticipated depletion of raw material reserves at the 100-year-old Penrith Lakes Scheme in Sydney, of which Boral is a major shareholder, it has been necessary to find a new source of materials to address the needs of Sydney’s construction industry into the future.

As part of Boral’s Sydney Aggregates Project, Boral has implemented an innovative in-pit crushing solution at its new Peppertree quarry, situated at Marulan South in the NSW Southern Tablelands, around 180 km south-west of Sydney. Due to become fully operational in 2014, the new quarry will supply the Sydney metropolitan area and greater NSW building and construction industries with up to 3.5 million tonnes of aggregate products per annum.

In addition to the Peppertree quarry, the $200 million Sydney Aggregates Project includes new rail infrastructure in and around the quarry, a new manufactured sand plant at Boral Cement in South Marulan and a new rail transfer terminal at the Boral Maldon Cement Works near Picton, NSW.

“Boral is now looking to optimise its quarrying process and get away from the traditional load and haul methodology where you have a large number of trucks and people moving between the blast site and the fixed crushing plant,” said Boral Site Manager Steve Parsons.

The Lokotrack LT160 at Peppertree is the largest mobile crusher in the Southern Hemisphere, weighing in at 285 tonnes and measuring 12 m high by 25 m in length. Extensive design consultation between Boral’s technical staff and Metso’s design team prior to design finalisation and manufacture has produced a machine with a number of innovations not seen on a mobile machine before.