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MODERN QUARRYING
January - February 2017
SUPPLIER
SPOTLIGHT
T
he chance recruitment of
ELB Equipment as the pre-
ferred equipment supplier
for Lion Park Quarries 31
years ago, has led to a part-
nership that has taken the company from
a small river sand supplier to one of the
most successful privately-owned sand
and aggregate quarries in the Western
Gauteng area. Much of the success of the
venture, says owner Johan Meintjes, can
be ascribed to the reliable equipment,
after-sales service and finance assistance
that has been offered to the company
through the years.
A three-decade long relationship
between a large-scale
equipment supplier and a
family-run quarrying operation
on the West Rand has become
a prime case study in the
establishment of a successful
symbiotic business relationship.
Building a
quarrying legacy
on trust
“Back in the day, we started our river
sand operation with a single Furukawa
FL 230 front-end loader that we bought
from Blacks Engineering, a start-up
company with a decent sales manager
who convinced us that the big Japanese
machines were the best way to go for
reliability and work ability. But, after
owning it for a year or two, he relocated
to England and the company was sold to
Bateman Earthmoving Equipment (later
to become ELB Equipment).”
Meintjes says that was really where
it all began, “and soon we found ELB
was a really good company with hon-
est people and terrific support for the
machines. We began working very closely
with them and as our requirements began
to change, they became an integral part
of our decision-making process to supply
the right equipment for the jobs required.”
This meant that as the sand operation
grew and the company moved to a new
site, it required more FELs and decided to
purchase new Kawasaki loaders. During
this period, the Furukawa FELs were
being discontinued and the company has
a joint venture with Kawasaki to continue
producing some of its machines. ELB
scooped up the Kawasaki agency and the
newmachines quickly propelled Lion Park
Quarries’ production to a completely new
level.
“With vastly improved turnover and a
growing fleet, we soon exhausted our fine
river sand overburden and were faced
with the new challenge of solid bedrock,”
Meintjes explains. “This presented us
with the opportunity of becoming a ful-
ly-fledged quarry able to supply the home
building industry as well as roads and cer-
tain infrastructure projects.”
Divisional director of ELB Equipment
Des van Heerden continues: “Our client
needed a good deal of assistance on all
fronts to unlock the new mineral wealth
at its feet. This simple load and haul oper-
ation was about to get a whole lot more
complicated. From now on, the operation
would need blasting, excavating, loading,
crushing, screening, washing and stock-
piling and fortunately, we could provide
them with the right solutions.
“We also restructured different types
Sumitomo excavators thrive in the
hard labour environment at the
bottom of the Lion Park Quarry pit.