The Arezki Group (Arezki) was established in 1962. Starting from the transport and supply of building materials to various European multi-national companies based in Senegal and Gambia, the company has evolved through the decades until recent years when it has undertaken major construction projects for roads, airports and large bridges. In the period from 2015 to 2020, Arezki had nearly US$600 million of scheduled and ongoing work.
The N1 road is the national road of Senegal. lt connects the west and the east of the country – starting at Dakar Port, the farthest point of the West African coast, and continuing around 650km up to Kidira, located at Senegal’s eastern border with Mali. Connecting two countries, the road is of strategic importance for the whole West Africa region.
A 180km section of the N1 between the city of Tambacounda and Kidira, in central Senegal’s Tambacounda region, was especially in need of a rebuild. In order to upgrade this road section, Arezki needed to upgrade its existing Mansa Dala plant, situated around 60kms from Tambacounda city, to increase its production capacity and build an entirely new plant site at Kidira, thus ensuring efficient and high-quality aggregates production for this and other construction works.
Among the N1 road project delivery challenges facing Arezki were the bad condition of that section of the strategically important road, the project’s inland site locations, with not enough infrastructure to transport materials for highly efficient road construction, not enough aggregates and quality for various other construction works in the whole region, a short project delivery time, and myriad difficulties linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arezki already owned two Metso Outotec crushing plants - one Metso Outoec modular Nordplant plant setup in Guinee Bissau, bordering Senegal to the north and Guinea to the southeast, and a plant in Mansa Dala.
Having already formed an excellent relationship with Metso Outotec, Arezki once again put its trust in the Finland-headquartered global premium quarrying plant manufacturer.
After detailed analysis of Arezki’s requirements for its new plant setup, the company placed an order for two new aggregates solutions - a Nordplant 5.1 complete plant and a Nordplant Compact HP200 CVB1845-4M. Both offer pre-designed solutions for high aggregates quality and fast delivery, a full package including machines, steelworks, conveyors, and electrical equipment, managed engineering, transport, and supervision for mechanical and electrical assembling, plant commissioning and on-site training for operators. The purchased plants also featured a new design and advanced technologies.
The new Metso Outotec plants offered Arezki increased aggregates production capacity and processes efficiency, high aggregates quality, lower operating costs, and sufficient supply of aggregates for other infrastructure construction.
The new Kidira site has a complete Nordplant 5.1 crushing and screening plant with intermediate stockpile. It includes VF561-2V C120 2x HP300 CVB1845-4M, and CVB2060-4M units. This full solution including machines, steelworks, conveyors and electrical equipment was delivered by the Metso Outotec team.
Kidira’s end product includes aggregates fraction for road applications 0-3, 3-8, 8-16, 16-25mm and 25-50mm on demand to fulfill the West Africa region’s needs.
Close to the existing customer plant in Mansa Dala, at the same site, an independent solution was implemented - a new Nordplant Compact HP200 CVB1845-4M crushing line . lts main purpose is to increase aggregates capacity and quality and produce more fractions for road applications: 0-3, 3-8, 8-16mm.
On this site, the Metso Outotec team also delivered a full package including machines, steelworks, conveyors and electrical equipment. This is a compact skid solution to be integrated into the existing plant in Mansa Dala but suitable to be easily relocated in another two existing crushing plants, including the new Nordplant 5.1 in Kidira.
lt must be highlighted that implementation of this major plant installation project happened in 2020 – at an intense and difficult time due to the COVID-19 situation. During the pandemic, it was challenging for Metso Outotec supervisors to travel or continuously work on-site while respecting safety distances and protocols. Also, the team experienced challenges with logistic operations and shipments.
Talking about the new crushing line in Mansa Dala, the plant’s manager, Salif Sow, said: “We chose this module because we wanted to improve the quality of the gravel. We have been using it for more than five months and we are very satisfied with the performance which is excellent. Thank you for the good delivery service you had set up so that we could receive the crusher as soon as possible. Your professionalism has appealed to us a lot, so we wish you a very good continuation.”
Abdel Halim Gara, plant manager of Kidira’s new full Nordplant 5.1, said: “We chose this installation to increase our production but also to have a better quality of gravel. We’re satisfied as the plant has performed well since installation. Thank you for respecting the delivery deadlines and also for accompanying us throughout this project. We hope that this partnership will always be beneficial for our two companies.”
