DRIVEN BY COMMUNITYAND SUSTAINABILITY
The roar of the Ngaruroro River hits you as you descend down off State Highway 50 about 10 km east of Hastings. It’s here on this flat alluvial river plain that I’ve come to visit Russell Roads, at their aggregate production site known as Monument.
It’s roughly two kilometres before the small settlement of Maraekakaho and one of four consented quarries across Hawke’s Bay that Gavin O’Connor, the Russell Roads CEO,is proud to have on his books.
His company is heavily invested in building New Zealand’s future, employing around 90 staff across three divisions.
Their quarry operation - Russell Aggregates - produces high-quality roading products direct from river run, which together with the company’s purpose-built asphalt manufacturing facility - Russell Asphalt - supplies products suited to construction and large-scale infrastructure projects.
Around 15-20% of the supply is used by Russell Roads, the construction arm of the business, with the rest being sold to small and large-scale operators in the construction and infrastructure industries.
As one would expect, the synergy from producing raw materials for use by another area of the business has considerable savings.
Robbie Gale has owned the business with his wife since 2017. A self-made man, he has a steely edge and a knack for envisioning opportunities and actioning ideas to great success.
I expect him to be future-focused and he doesn’t disappoint. In 2015, Russell Aggregates processed 10,000 tonnes from the site. Today it’s 400,000 tonnes. By 2027, Robbie wants to hit 1 million tonnes. All to meet market demand. I whistle through my teeth. It’s a big number. But when I see the seriousness on his face, I don’t doubt he’ll achieve itfor a second.
The Monument site is busy. It runs like a well-oiled machine. Large trucks come and go, dropping off river stones for processing or collecting finished aggregate products and transporting them straight off the site to local marketplaces.
Loaders are everywhere, pushing and pulling stones from different stacks. It’s an impressive operation with every operator seeming to know their exact role and where to be.
Organising operations on the ground is Klayten Betts, the Site Foreman. He appreciates the finer details of river-run aggregate production and is keen to explain how it all works.
Yelling over the production noise he relays his thoughts. “We extract direct from the river on the boundary of our site here,” he says, pointing in the direction of Ngaruroro River about 100 metres away.
“We wash that material through our wash plant which is made up of a K4 Scalping Screen, S130 Wash Plant, and a Cyclone which classifies the scree. From there, that makes our two concrete products 22/65 and 65+ which go into stockpiles.
We use an R5 Impact Crusher and our H4e Cone Crusher to break them down into 20mm, 40mm and 65mm base coarse products which we mix (based on our mix designs) to create our final products - AP20, AP40, AP65 and M4 products which all get used in roading.”
The H4e is a fairly new addition, acquired with the future of the business in mind. Klayton explains, “We use it to make 20mm or we can change it over and make crusher dust. Before we had the H4e we weren’t able to make crusher dust and that product is now an integral part of our business. We’re putting it into our M4 product to give it a better compaction rate and our customers are really liking it.”
The move to electric-powered machines is part of Russell Aggregate’s drive to be more sustainable and reflects its ambition of becoming greener.
“We don’t just want to make money from our products, we want to do that in the most sustainable way possible. [Hence] we’re looking to move a lot of our plant to electric over the long term. It’s not an overnight switch but we’ve started with our aggregates division and the H4e.”
“There is an operational saving, and if we can get that right we’ll save money in how we go about producing our aggregate.”
They recognise that universally, customers are wanting products produced in more sustainable ways, so the company is gearing itself to transition more of its business into that space.
“It’s quite tough for a construction company to do that, but we’re dedicated to doing things better for our business and for the communities in which we live and work,” says Gavin, the CEO.
“We don’t just want to make money from our products, we want to do that in the most sustainable way possible. [Hence] we’re looking to move a lot of our plant to electric over the long term. It’s not an overnight switch but we’ve started with our aggregates division and the H4e.”
Gavin has further ambitions to power the H4e by installing solar power on the open pastureland between the Monument site and the main highway. Enough panels to eventually service the quarry and power their entire plant if possible.
“We think that’s a really good sell to our clients. We can tell them, ‘look we’re not just trying to make profit from product, we’re trying to do it in the most sustainable way practicable.’” That includes potential benefits for Russell Aggregates too.
“There is an operational saving, and if we can get that right we’ll save some money in how we go about producing our aggregate.” The entire team are enthusiastic about the approach because it’s win-win for everyone, including their community.
Russell Roads donates 10% of profits into local initiatives allocated through their privately run company trust, so the more money they can make the more they can support local causes. Their community is important to them, but in their humble manner they help because they genuinely care, not because they’re looking for anything in return.
It’s that honesty that sees them step up and help when required. When the main roads to Maraekakaho and Kereru washed away in the recent floods, cutting access to both small settlements, Russell Aggregates took action.
They filled dump truck after dump truck with aggregate and packed the roads back in, restoring access (Maraekakaho took 300 tonnes!). Then a week later Russell Roads put base coarse down, and rechipped the road surfaces, restoring both to pre-flood condition. Proof it’s handy having a quarry just down the road.
The sentiment extended to their team too, with Russell Roads providing equipment and staff their time, to volunteer for property clean-ups and community working bees. Gavin beams with pride. “If you can’t do good work in your own communities, where can you do it?”
Supplying Russell Aggregates with their processing machines – both in the past and present – has been the role of Equip2. Every machine on site has been procured via Bert and his team and it’s a relationship that’s greatly valued by both companies.
“All the machines we have, all of our mobile crushing and screening plants are all supplied by Equip2. All the parts and service is supplied through them too. It’s nice to go to one person, rather than multiple businesses and deal with multiple people,” says Klayton. “If you ring them up and have a difficult problem with a job, they’ll put their heads together and sort it out as soon as they can.
”Gavin nods in agreement. “They’re very responsive and proactive,” he says. “They come to us with new ideas and suggestions on how to improve our operation, but they’re also there to fix problems whenever they do inevitably occur. In our experience, all their people go above and beyond to help out. We value Equip2 both on that relationship level but also on the operational level too”, he concludes.
Both companies also connect on similar values which makes working together feel seamless. Gavin thinks this is owed to both businesses being family-run ventures. “It feels like a family-orientated, collaborative-type business and that’s what we are, so we want to work with people who are responsive and want the best for us, and that’s what we find we get from Equip2.”
The team at Equip2 is assisting Russell Roads to transition to an electric future of sustainably produced products that are cheaper to produce. If you’d like to remove cost from your production line and bring sustainable practices into your crushing plant, give Bert or Paul a call today on 0800 100 684.
