Coated plants: Keys to efficiency and excellence

There is not a road that EBOMAF cannot today develop and build whatever standards have been defined. Whether it is on its bases in Togo or in Burkina Faso, an installation leaps to the eye by its size and its peripheries: the enrobed power plant. On the company's construction sites, bitumen is not prepared shamefully in barrels with firewood as is seen in many African countries. This crucial step is based on a process that is based on the latest technology. Pending the acquisition of a third, the two centres for the manufacture of serious bitumen (GB) and bituminous concrete (BB) give a lead over its competitors.

One of the symbols of EBOMAF Group's performance is undoubtedly its investment in equipment. Machinery and installations (concrete or coated centrals) play a decisive role in its long-term take over its competitors. The only underground power station in EBOMAF headquarters in the Togolese capital appears to be the top investment in equipment. Acquired at a price of CFAF 4 billion, it is one of the leading technologies in the success of road works."When we were still engineering trainees in France, there were no more than five (5) plants like this in all hexagons", remembers Jean-Louis Roche, Technical Director of the EBOMAF Group. After helping to shape the extension of the Boulevard des Tensoba, this unit plays an important part in the spring of the city's road infrastructure.

Because of its size and occupation, it is the most valuable tool among the most important equipment of the Base,"Place Reinhard".When the coated power plant starts running, the site takes on the appearance of an entire production plant. It prints the pace of the project and provides information on the level achieved. It is essential in the manufacture of gravel bitumen (GB) and bituminous concrete (BB). It is a TSM 17 (Tambour, dryer, mixer), under the command of Rodrigue Sankima, the operator. It is composed of a metering unit that receives the various aggregates, conveyor belts, a drum, an alloying park, a conveyor with a control panel and different silos for storage of the coating.

Depending on the consistency of the 150° heated bitumen and the formula developed in the laboratory, the power plant produced according to the three cut-outs (0/4 sand, 4/6 and 6/10 gravel), either the GB or the BB required at the site. The first is based on the following manufacturing process: 0/6 sand and 6/12, 12/20 gravel mixed with bitumen. While the second brings together 0/4 of sand and 4/6, 6/10 in addition to bitumen. With an automatic and computerised system, the Centrale has a control centre and three (3) silos of sixty (60) tons each. This allows the operator to monitor, evaluate and ensure the process adopted. The Lome base has a capacity of 200 tonnes per hour."Depending on the distance to be covered by GB or BB, the operator does its programming and when everything is at least, the process starts with the amount necessary to meet the needs of the site", explains Rodrigue Sankima, operator of the Centrale.

In its ambition to make each base autonomous in order to ensure better management of the works, EBOMAF has also positioned another plant in Dapaong in the North Togo. Even if it is not as impressive as the Lomé one, it remains that this coated factory achieves the same objectives of efficiency and efficiency. It is also a TSM 17 with a single silo subdivided into two of thirty (30) tons each. It has the same production capacity as Lomé. The Dapaong Coated Power Plant has its peculiarity of being mobile. This represents a certain advantage: it can be transported wherever the need for GB and BB is expressed even in emergency."Just get the heads in and everything else can easily towed to any point where there is a construction site"says Hamado Kurba, the construction manager in Dapaong.

After providing the BB for the rehabilitation of the Kara lanes, it started operations to spread the GB over the thirty-eight (38) kilometres of the Dapaong-Ponio-Frontière section of Burkina Faso. The Koudougou-Dédougou yard is about to host a new plant whose capacity is announced to be larger. This new acquisition will be incorporated into the technical-material springboard already in motion on the sections to be developed and built in Burkina Faso and Togo. These factories bring real parts of EBOMAF's radiation to the African landscape of the BTP.

E.P./A.B.