Bairnsdale Quarries

RICHARD BROWNLOW, owner of Bairnsdale Quarries provides an insight into the development of his Greenfield site.

BAIRNSDALE Quarries is a new entrant in the Victorian quarrying landscape having been granted a work authority and planning approval for a new 180Ha greenfield site 5km’s south of Bairnsdale in Victoria’s east in March this year.

The quarry is situated on Richard’s family’s farm. Over the years and prior to the regulatory environment being as it is today, small amounts of gravel had been extracted for farm tracks and stockyards on the property. Richard first began researching markets for the distinctive yellow, orange, gold, black, white and brown river pebbles when he began to get more involved with the family farm. It was an evolution over time, the quality and extent of the resource lent itself to producing a screened decorative pebble for the Garden Supply and Landscaping markets as well as a crushed and smaller round pebble for exposed aggregate and polished concrete markets.

A program of exploration was undertaken and it was calculated there was a viable volume of resources to justify the process of obtaining the relevant planning approvals and work authority. During this consuming and costly process, Richard completed a Certificate IV in Surface Extraction Operations at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. It was a good base to build further knowledge about the industry. The majority of the workload associated with the work authority and planning permits was done by Richard, which had a twofold benefit of keeping the costs down, while also providing
valuable experience about the legislative frameworks in which the industry has to operate. Richard’s previous career was more corporate in nature but was dealing with mining, agricultural commodity and oil companies handling logistics and pricing risk thus the similarities are hard to avoid.

Very early in the piece, Richard joined CMPA as a Workforce member and utilised many contacts made through meetings and site visits to members quarries around Victoria. This provided a fantastic base to enter the industry with a phone full of extremely helpful and experienced operators that were able to be called upon.

“Through the CMPA I have met customers, suppliers and very experienced quarry operators who have all assisted with pushing the project from idea to operation.”

Local various grades of screened gravel for construction and road projects are sold but there is a limited market as the Bairnsdale region is a long thin wedge with the Gippsland Lakes/Bass Strait to the south and the mountains to the north. The key has been to value add the resource which allows product to sell into markets further away. The vast majority of the decorative pebble and coloured concrete aggregate travels to Melbourne and beyond. Freight is obviously very important when the average lead to a customer is over 250km.

An initial production run was handled by a rented Finlay 694+ 3 deck portable screen, Cat 972H and Cat 980K wheel loader’s, Kobelco 45 tonne excavator and a Terex dump truck. A local contractor Mick Crawford from Scrub Cat Earthmoving has been working with Bairnsdale Quarries from day one, building the access roads and associated works through to assisting production with some of their
gear. The use of a contractor was very important to be able to get a production run completed at a competitive dollar per tonne rate without the capital outlay of all the necessary equipment on day one. Since then a Jaques 2’4” cone running on full re-circulation with an Allis Chalmers 14 x 6 foot 2 deck screen has been added and a Volvo L150E which served the first half of its life with CMPA members Wally & Camillo Gianarelli from Goulburn Valley Resources at Seymour. A washing plant is currently under construction.

Now a voting member of the CMPA, Bairnsdale Quarries looks forward to a very busy time ahead. Always on the lookout for new and more efficient ways of doing things and constantly trying to innovate for customers’ needs.

“I would like to thank the CMPA secretariat and members for welcoming me into the industry and providing so much assistance to date and no doubt into the future.”

60 Seconds with a voting member . .

What is your name?
Richard Brownlow

Who do you work for?
Bairnsdale Quarries

How many years have you worked for this business?
3 years

How many years have you been involved in the Industry?
3 years

What is your role?
Owner/Manager

What does your job involve?
Everything, the day to day running of the business. Planning, finance, production, sales, marketing, regulatory, staffing, administration, OHS, accounting, maintenance and purchasing.

What is the best part of your job?
As anyone in small business knows, there are always new and unexpected challenges around every corner. I am enjoying seeing the transition from a business in the planning stages navigating through a very long and complex regulatory environment with a greenfield site to now hitting the ground producing finished
products and getting it to customers.

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