Bukovel is a rising ski resort in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains in the west of Ukraine. Nearby, the construction company PBS invested in a Benninghoven mixing plant: The ECO 3000 will be producing rolled asphalt as well as mastic asphalt, offering maximum flexibility for building and repairing the mountain roads in the region with many bridges.
The largest ski resort in Eastern Europe is located in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. Within a short period, Bukovel has become renowned as a modern Alpine destination and has turned into a tourist magnet. PBS has its headquarters in the nearby city of Ivano-Frankivsk.
With its machinery fleet, which also includes various milling machines, pavers and rollers from the Wirtgen Group, PBS is successful in its home region as well as in the neighboring Zakarpattia Oblast region.
For building and refurbishing the roads in the region, which is characterized by numerous mountain roads with many bends and bridges, the construction company has now also invested in a Benninghoven asphalt mixing plant type ECO 3000.
A successful start:
Learn more about the application of the ECO 3000 at PBS in Ukraine in the video below.
“To supply our asphalt crews, the plant practically has to produce day and night,” said Oleksiy Pasternak, Managing Director at PBS. “That is why we gathered comprehensive information about current plant technology and in particular the reliability. In the end, the ECO 3000 was the clear winner. It convinced us with respect to all criteria.” The start was very promising: “In the first six weeks, we already produced 63,000 t of asphalt with the new Benninghoven plant. When you consider that 100,000 t is the entire annual production quantity of other plants, this is an absolute top value,” reports Shnaideruk Olexandr Vasylovych, foreman at PBS.
“Our plant practically has to produce asphalt day and night. The ECO 3000 convinced us with its reliability.”
Mykhailo Pereginets, Project Manager at PBS (left) with Kanan Samadov, Regional Sales Manager at Benninghoven
One important advantage of the ECO series that was a key factor for PBS is the optimum relocation capability of the plants: They master fast relocations without loss of quality, which is a crucial advantage for large temporary construction sites. Benninghoven met the request for the greatest possible flexibility and mobility of the plant by using transportable steel foundations and cables based on the Plug & Work principle. The latter allows easy installation and removal of the entire electrical system.
The ECO plant type already offers owners maximum flexibility and ease of transport. That is because most of the components of this plant type come in transport-optimized containers to facilitate relocation. The modular structure also makes it possible to integrate a large number of high-tech components that can quickly and easily be tailored to the specific requirements of the owner, even as a retrofit. Benninghoven ensures this with prepared interfaces that can be activated at any time, allowing owners to increase the economic efficiency of the plant while securing their investment.
New ECO 3000 in the Iwano-Frankivsk region, near the Bukovel ski resort in Ukraine: In addition to the high level of consulting quality, the decision was influenced by the reliability, flexibility and forward-looking technology of the Benninghoven ECO plant series.
Prepared for future requirements
Prepared interfaces for subsequent integration of, for example, a cold recycling system, contribute to making the plant future-proof. There are currently still many projects for building new roads in Ukraine and relatively few resurfacing jobs that would generate reclaimed asphalt. If the addition of used asphalt into the production process should become important in the future, the ECO 3000 is already prepared for this. This will allow PBS to easily retrofit a recycling system.
The ECO 3000 at PBS integrates a screen with 6-fold screening, although screen decks are less common in Ukraine. This allows PBS to already follow the current EU regulations when producing their mixtures.
In the region of PBS, that is also home to Eastern Europe’s largest ski resort, Bukovel, customers request rolled asphalt as well as mastic asphalt. The majority of this is used to create the asphalt surfaces on the many bridges for the mountain roads. This is where the ECO 3000 brings other advantages into play: Benninghoven plants are already equipped for producing mastic asphalt upon delivery from the factory. The production of mastic asphalt requires higher production temperatures than for rolled asphalt: While the virgin mineral for conventional mixtures has to be heated to 180 °C, mastic asphalt requires temperatures between 250 °C and 350 °C .
“The higher temperature of mastic asphalt creates a high thermal load on the plant components. Benninghoven has various solutions for counteracting this, for example a wear protection up to 450 °C.”
Kanan Samadov, Regional Sales Manager at Benninghoven
To withstand the higher production temperatures of mastic asphalt, Benninghoven plants are already heat-resistant as a standard. This affects several components – from the screen decks in the screen to the option for direct loading. “The higher temperature of mastic asphalt creates a high thermal load on the plant components. Benninghoven has various solutions of counteracting this, for example a wear protection that is temperature-resistant up to 450 °C. The material, a particularly resistant steel, can withstand strong heat in the long term,” explains Kanan Samadov, Regional Sales Manager at Benninghoven.
Profile of the ECO 3000 in Bukovel, Ukraine
