As published in African Review: Clean materials for Algerian construction

Addressing an urgent need for high quality sand in North Africa, as the region continues to develop its infrastructural operations.  

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The core theme at 8ème Rencontres des Mines et des Carrières, held recently in Constantine, was: “It’s all about Algeria now.”

All may be a slight exaggeration but with a superficy of 919,595 m², more than 900 quarries and an external debt close to nil, the tenth largest country in the world is perfectly positionned to quickly progress its infrastructural development strategy. This dynamic emerging country’s ambition to become a strong economic player in MENA was recently showcased in the opening of the East-West motorway, a $11.2 billion project, which links Tunisia and Morocco via a 1,200-kilometre road across Algeria.

With its finger on the pulse of the fast-developing North African construction market, CDE is anchoring its reputation in the region as the go-to washing materials provider for mines, quarries and construction companies.

In September 2015, just five months after initial contact, CDE installed its first EvoWash 151 for new client Sarl Lioua, located in the Biskra province in the North East of Algeria. The company has been operating for over 10 years and supplies sand and aggregates for construction projects across the country.

It started with a click

In early 2015, Sarl Lioua identified an urgent need for better-quality sand and started shopping around for the service provider that would best understand their requirements and deliver an efficient, built-to-last washing installation. It only took one click of the mouse for Zakaria Achour, director of Sarl Lioua’s quarry operations, to start what was to become a fruitful relationship with CDE Global.

At CDE, language is never a barrier. Mr. Achour does not speak English but dialogue was immediately engaged in his native language as the company’s Regional Business Executive for North Africa speaks English, French and Arabic.

Mr Achour recalls: “We needed [a sand washing plant] to improve an existing installation. We were previously using a screw feeder to wash sand and we were losing a lot of fine sand.

“I discovered CDE by searching on the Internet. I sent an enquiry message through the CDE Global website and within a day I communicating with the company in my native language. After I explained our requirements, the CDE Business Executive who is based in North Africa came to Algeria to meet with us, spend a few days on our site to discuss our needs and introduced the work of CDE. He then presented the ways in which the washing solutions CDE offers could help.”

After exploring options with the CDE experts who analysed the available feed material to develop the best value-for-money installation, the highly adaptable EvoWash 151 was elected as the solution of choice by Mr Achour for its ability to process a wide range of mixed materials, including Sarl Lioua’s sand and gravel, silica sand, iron ore and other construction and demolition waste materials.

The days of their sand screw classifier were counted.

ProMan – when simplicity makes all the difference

CDE subscribes to a simple and efficient project management system: ProMan. A project manager (ProMan), who is an expert in the region and requirements of the client becomes their unique point of contact. Supported by a Project Team that covers all aspects of the work, the ProMan accompanies the client from the conception of their bespoke washing installation to its commissioning, with responsibility to deliver the highest level of quality within agreed timeframes and costs. With the added bonus of fully transparent and straight-forward communications, the development, building and commissioning process becomes seamless.

As washing equipment is designed, built and tested at the CDE campus in Northern Ireland before being shipped to site, deployment of a turnkey EvoWash on the Sarl Lioua site was smooth and fast, to the Algerian company’s satisfaction: “Our new CDE EvoWash installation has definitely met our expectations in terms of quality product, capacity and custom care services”, said Mr Achour, who added that his key priorities of “improving sand quality and having a professional customer service” had been met.

“The CDE Business Executive and our ProMan were ultra professional from the start of the project to the deployment of the plant on our site. And with the built-in 12-month warranty we know that we can contact CDE at any time if we have a problem or simply need advice”, he concluded

 Aymen Bennour, Business Development Executive said: “It was a pleasure to work on the modernisation of Sarl Lioua’s operations with Mr Achour. Sand screw classifiers can be limited in terms of achieving a quality product that matches the requirements of construction companies.

“As Algeria continues to develop its infrastructural operations, sand quality standards for construction materials that are recognised at European level are becoming the norm in the country. As a result, to remain competitive, quarry and mine operators need to quickly adopt efficient sand washing with cyclone technology if they have not done so yet.

“It just makes business sense to improve installations that waste fines and water and ultimately affect a company’s performance and ability to compete in a growing market. For instance an EvoWash combined with a CDE AquaCycle are highly efficient in terms of production levels of consistent grades of sand whilst recycling 90% of used water; this in turn makes for a very attractive proposition to clients in the construction sector.

“Sarl Lioua currently feeds the EvoWash plant at a rate of 150 tonnes per hour, with the option to increase this rate to 300 tonnes per hour at a later stage depending on their operations. The company can now offer its customers a consistent sand grade of 0/2mm with less than 5%fines, produced to any desired requirements and quantities. With reduced loss of fine sand and increased, flexible and consistent production capacity, the EvoWash has proven the key to both peace of mind and higher return on investment for our customer.”