From the mine to the motorway – the Colas Északkő turns 35

Nostalgia and reflection were also part of the celebrations marking the 35th anniversary of Északkő. Zoltán Cseh said: „In our day-to-day work, we are concerned with the same things as we were 35 years ago: we produce, we sell, we plan mining operations and the efficient operation of our processing technologies, and we look to the future, in the hope that we will be able to celebrate our future anniversaries with our employees as well.”

The managing director of Északkő Kft. also celebrated an anniversary. He joined the Colas group 35 years ago, where he first worked as chief engineer in Mauritius and then as head of engineering for five years. After returning home, he spent a year and a half as chief engineer at EGUT Rt., before joining Északkő in 1998, where he has now been the managing director for 20 years.
At the anniversary celebration, as well as thanking the staff for their work, those celebrating their own anniversaries with the company were also honoured, including colleagues who had already worked for the company’s predecessor and who, at the time of the 35th-anniversary celebrations of Colas Északkő, had already been with the company for 40 years.

Mines from the Danube Bend to Sárospatak

Északkő operates mines from the Danube Bend to the Sárospatak area; in the Pest region, it has sites in Szob, Márianosztra, Nógrádkövesd, Bercel and Szanda. In the Mátra region, it operates in Recsk and Gyöngyössolymos, and in the Tokaj region in the towns of Tállya, Tarcal, Sárospatak and Bodrogkeresztúr, as well as in Debrecen-Apafa.

The company plays a leading role in Eastern Hungary, primarily in the quarrying and processing of volcanic rocks and the sale of crushed stone products manufactured from them.

As the first step in the French group Colas SA’s expansion into Central Europe, it secured the right to acquire a majority stake in the state-owned Északkő Bányászati Kft. in May 1991 by winning the privatisation tender launched by the Hungarian government.

From privatisation to automated plants – developments are ongoing

Privatisation provided Északkő with a stable operational foundation for technological modernisation. The change of ownership marked the start of the replacement of equipment: obsolete crushers, screening plants, front-end loaders and excavators were replaced with state-of-the-art machinery. These improvements led to greater operational reliability and reduced the operational burden.
The automation of the plants began around the turn of the millennium: the process started in 1999 at the Nógrádkövesd plant, and then continued at Tállya, Tarcal, Recsk and Szob. Today, automation goes beyond simply starting and stopping equipment, selecting operating modes or displaying faults on-screen; the efficiency of the equipment’s operation is also continuously monitored, and decisions regarding necessary interventions and further developments can be made on the basis of the reports generated in this way. 

One of the advantages of being part of an international group is that, when planning investments, it is possible to learn about new techniques and technologies that the group has already tested and is applying in other parts of the world to improve employees’ working conditions and safety, reduce its ecological footprint, and increase productivity.

Significant improvements have also been made at the Colas-csoport level in Tállya

As part of an investment worth nearly 11 million euros carried out in Tállya between 2020 and 2021, a plant was built that is exceptionally state-of-the-art even by European standards. Zoltán Cseh recalled:

In addition to our own engineers, specialists from the group’s French subsidiaries and our domestic supplier partners all contributed to the design and implementation of this new technology; of particular note are the contributions made by Gép-System, Cont-L, Colas Alterra and Colas Út.

As part of the investment, new tertiary crushing technology was installed in the mine’s operational section, along with a finished-product storage facility and a goods dispatch system to serve road transport; following the commissioning of these facilities, the processing technology that had been in operation for decades in the vicinity of the town, close to residential areas, was decommissioned.

„The sector needs predictability”

As well as looking back at the past, the challenges of the present and the future were, of course, also a focus of attention. According to the managing director of Északkő:

Today, it is in the interests of both society and mining companies that, in Hungary too, within the mining sectors supplying raw materials to the construction industry – just like other countries that manage their mineral resources responsibly – a genuine mineral resource management strategy is established to ensure security of supply in the medium and long term.

Both the Fundamental Law and the Mining Act – which was enacted in 1993 and has since been amended on numerous occasions – refer to the need to draw up a strategy; however, in its current form, the legislation primarily defines the framework for mineral resource exploration, the opening of mines, mining operations and mine closures, as well as the declaration of mineral resources and the payment of mining royalties. Although the institutional framework administering the Mining Act keeps records of exploration areas, as well as active, suspended, mines in the process of closure and closed mines, and their currently reported mineral reserves, this body has no insight into either the quality of the products that can be extracted from the recorded mineral resources, or whether, in a given mine, any official restrictions (e.g. nature conservation, heritage protection, local regulations, etc.) the mining operator is unable to access a certain volume of the reserves recorded in the state register.
Furthermore, it has no insight into the quantitative and qualitative trends in the generation of waste materials that can be used in the construction industry from secondary utilisation—such as demolition materials or other industrial by-products— nor of the quantitative and qualitative trends in the generation of material types that can be produced from them to replace primary natural minerals; nor does it have any insight into the expected development of short-, medium- and long-term industrial demand. Thus, in the absence of effective management of resources and demand, it is currently impossible, for example, to develop alternatives to address the limited production and supply capacities for the gravel and sand fractions required to meet the typical ready-mixed concrete demand in the Budapest conurbation – a situation already experienced during the construction boom of the 2018–20s. According to Zoltán Cseh,

It is also unclear whether, in the case of investments aimed at renovating the domestic railway network, the production and supply of railway ballast of the required quality and quantity can be guaranteed, given the investments that the limited number of potential manufacturers have failed to make in recent years due to unjustified regulations, and the new obstacles that have since arisen regarding access to mineral resources.
The development of a substantive mineral resource management strategy requires political will, followed by cooperation between the relevant ministries (the Ministry of Economy and Energy, the Ministry of Transport and Investment, and the Ministry responsible for the Living Environment) and professional organisations.

Organised visits help to shape public attitudes towards mining

Mining, and within that, quarrying, is one of humanity’s earliest industrial activities. According to the managing director, despite its millennia-long history, a significant proportion of society knows very little about opencast mining, other than that mines leave large scars on the landscape; indeed, the common view is that „we need their products, but they shouldn’t be transported along our roads”. Zoltán Cseh is convinced that shaping attitudes towards mining must begin in the education system. He added:

Environmental protection is important, but we should also emphasise that mining plays a fundamental role in our everyday lives, including in the operation of the construction industry and the development of infrastructure. Our transport, the time we spend travelling, our sense of comfort and our safety depend largely on the level of development and current condition of the infrastructure.

In the hope of shaping public opinion, Északkő welcomes visitors, schoolchildren, university students and those with a professional interest in an organised manner, showing them its operational mines and also providing a venue for events.

They create value for society through responsible business practices

Even before the privatisation of 1991, Északkő’s larger mines were key suppliers of raw materials for domestic infrastructure development. Zoltán Cseh emphasised:
 

„One of Északkő’s greatest strengths is its professional background spanning several decades: the knowledge and experience of its staff.”

For three and a half decades, the company has been striving to process its mineral resources as efficiently as possible and to position them in areas of application that create value for the user industries and, through them, for society as a whole.