ONE MILLION TONNES: BROOKLAND SAND AND AGGREGATES

“When we delivered the first McCloskey machine in 2010, an S190, the business was operating at 250,000 tonnes per annum.”

Brookland Sand and Aggregates Limited has, for the first time in its trading history, delivered more than one million tonnes of product in a twelve-month period. Behind the milestone achievement are 15 McCloskey machines, integral to the delivery of more than 40 separate products.

Operating from Littlejohns China Clay Pit, the largest China Clay pit in the world, the Saint Austell based company takes vast quantities of granite, rock and sand, a by-product from the process of extracting Kaolin, from the quarry’s operators. The material is highly abrasive and varies greatly in size, ranging from fine sands to 25-tonne boulders.

Processing this material are 15 McCloskey machines, including three J50H Jaw Crushers – with the fourth joining the fleet imminently – a C2 Cone Crusher and 10 McCloskey screeners.

Brookland Sand and Aggregates’ primary crusher fleet is made up of McCloskey J50H Jaw Crushers. With the widest jaw in its class, the J50 provides class-leading throughput and capacity with the largest stockpile height, essential for Brookland’s operation. When McCloskey Equipment deliver a fourth J50H this summer, Brookland Sand and Aggregates can increase it’s overall productivity by a further 50%, with a target of 1.5million tonnes of product delivered per annum in 2021/2022.

Throughput and capacity are only part of the story for Brookland Sand and Aggregate; the J50’s aggressive pre-screen sets the machine apart from its rivals. By separating the huge amounts of sands and fines ahead of the jaw, Brookland Sand and Aggregates is able to extract fines for processing with a single machine. This process also increases the longevity of the jaw by removing abrasives and producing a cleaner product from the main conveyor.

From here, material can be further processed by either a McCloskey C2 Cone Crusher, which was one of the first of the new-generation McCloskey Cone Crushers to be delivered in the UK by McCloskey Equipment, or into one of 10 screeners on site, depending on the final product required.

Two R155 High Energy Screeners, which are some of the most versatile in the McCloskey R-Series range, are used to produce clean gabion stone or feed into the C2 Cone crusher to produce 803 or similar, single-size aggregate.

Brookland’s two S190s work daily to deliver coarse concrete sands, one of the company’s biggest selling products. The S190 has proved to be one of Brookland Sand and Aggregates’ best performing machines; until recently, the company was still using one of their original S190s, one of their very first McCloskey machines, which had provided 11-years of service and processed more than two million tonnes of sand and gravel.

The main classifier on site is a McCloskey S250, one of the world’s largest track mobile screeners. The class-leading screening area is essential to Brookland Sand and Aggregates’ throughput, delivering clean aggregate, 10mm and 20mm product from the high-energy screening action.

Completing the fleet are five McCloskey S130s, each with an individual role in the operation. Two machines support the S190s in the production of concrete sand. The other three machines are used to create single size aggregate, add lime to product or to reclaim stone from scalping operations.

Marshall Cleave, Director of Brookland Sand and Aggregates, commented; “To reach one million tonnes of product in 12 months is an achievement, but to do it in the midst of a pandemic is incredible. At the heart of it are our McCloskey machines; they have consistently out-performed rivals producing clean, ready-to-use end products.

“We have worked with McCloskey Equipment since 2010 and they have always been a fantastic partner for us; from the provision of new machines to providing technical support and supplying service and wear parts, they have always delivered. Being down in Cornwall, we are a long way from anybody, but whenever we’ve needed something, they have been there. Put simply, without these McCloskey machines and the support of McCloskey Equipment, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver this amount of quality product or grow as we have.”