Big investment in Doosan pays off for Wentvalley

Aggregates and recycling firm adds new excavators and wheel loaders to existing quarry fleet

WENTVALLEY Aggregates & Recycling Ltd have recently purchased new Stage IIIB-compliant Doosan DX420LC-3 and DX340LC-3 crawler excavators, together with two new DL550-3 and three new DL420-3 wheel loaders, from Teesside-based Doosan dealers Construction Plant (Suppliers) Ltd.

The newly acquired machines are now working alongside existing previous-generation Doosan DL450 wheel loader and Doosan DX225LC excavator models at the Yorkshire-based firm’s quarry near Wentbridge, close to the A1/M62 motorway junction.

With easy access to Leeds, Bradford and Hull, Wentvalley are well placed to supply a full range of quarried limestone products to customers within a 50-mile radius of the site.

The company has also invested heavily in new crushing technology, including large jaw and cone equipment, together with a large screening plant capable of handling in excess of 600 tonnes/h. The new Doosan machines are designed to cover the working day production and loading shift patterns for these machines.

Quarry manager Ean Noble explained: ‘These machines are fed by the new Doosan excavators, while the Doosan wheel loaders remove the products produced by the crushing and screening system and stockpile them. All the Doosan equipment works flat out from 7am to 5pm every working day, to keep up with demand, with the wheel loaders continuously filling lorries taking materials to projects and plants throughout the Yorkshire area.’

He added: ‘Faced with the amount of work they have to do, the reliability and productivity of all the Doosan machines is very impressive.’

Whilst the new top-of-the-range Doosan DL550-3 wheel loader and the new excavators work mainly at the quarry face, the Doosan DL420-3 and DL450 wheel loaders are also used to stockpile and feed material for a state-of-the-art washing plant built by the company to produce high-quality washed soft sand and grit sand together with 40mm, 20mm and 10mm single-size stone, to complement the dry screened range of materials produced at the quarry.

The new Doosan equipment also works on the tipping facilities at the site, which take clean concrete and hardcore materials for processing into crushed dry screened products or for washing to produce grit sands and recycled washed aggregates. The Doosan DX225LC excavator is used for a range of applications including secondary breaking.

Part of the new-generation family of large wheel loaders from Doosan, the DL420-3 and DL550-3 Stage IIIB models combine high engine power output and SCR technology with a new ZF transmission and several other features to minimize fuel consumption. With bucket capacities of 4.0 and 5.4 cubic metres, respectively, the DL420-3 and DL550-3 wheel loaders are intended to meet a wide range of material-handling needs from loading and transporting granular material to industrial, mining and quarrying applications.

The DX340LC-3 and DX420LC-3 excavators are designed to handle a broad range of applications such as heavy earthmoving, road building, civil engineering, demolition, quarrying and large-scale material handling. The DX340LC-3 has an operating weight of 34.9 tonnes and a digging depth of 7.54m, whilst the 41.9-tonne DX420LC-3 has a digging depth of 7.74m.