Ensuring Future Needs with Astec

Opening a new asphalt plant is not a decision to take lightly. Not only is it a large capital investment in equipment, but companies need to invest in training, resources, permits, construction and more.

For Principio Asphalt however, their decision to purchase a new Astec 400-tph Double Barrel® Drum Mixer plant as their first plant was one they were ready for.

“Principio Asphalt is a new company backed by decades of experience,” Paul Lester, Executive Vice President at Diamond Materials, LLC said. “This new venture is backed by a joint venture between York Building Products, P. Flanigan & Sons and Diamond Materials. Each of these companies has the knowledge and expertise in their fields to ensure this new plant would be successful.”

An Underserved Market

Once the three companies decided to form Principio Asphalt, their location for the plant was easy - the York Belvedere Sand & Gravel in North East, MD. The area is in the process of huge growth with an interchange to I-95 that will allow the plant to provide service regionally to the Cecil County, MD, greater Newark, DE, and southeastern PA markets.

“We were sending a lot of our mix from the Wilmington Diamond Materials plant out to the Maryland market and knew it was an underserved area,” Lester said. “With the new plant, Diamond Materials as a laydown contractor would be a great customer for the plant and the partnership with York and P. Flanigan allowed for it to happen.”

The York Belvedere quarry provides a variety of hard rock products in many sizes, making them an ideal partner and location for asphalt production.

“The experience and materials at the York quarry will give us the ability to control the quality of the mixes we produce,” Lester said. “Being able to design the mixes and then deploy them for our customers was a huge advantage of this install and location instead of transporting mix into the area.”

A Plant to Meet Demand

When Principio Asphalt was in the market to purchase the new plant, they knew they were going to need a unit that could reach high capacities, while also being able to utilize a high amount of recycled materials.

“Right now we’re producing mixes with at least 15% of recycled asphalt material in it and most of our normal everyday mixes are up to 40% recycled material,” Lester said. “We're definitely seeing a demand for it in Delaware, and we think Maryland and Pennsylvania are coming right behind. Eventually in our industry, producers will need to supply environmental product declarations (EPDs) for their materials and so recycled mixes are the way to go.”

Since Diamond Materials has experience with asphalt production, Lester and his team knew they also wanted to have a plant they were familiar with at the first Principio location.

“We wanted a plant we knew we could handle and Diamond Materials has a plant in Dover, DE that we really like,” Lester said. “That location is an Astec Double RAP plant so we have a good background with that plant and knowing what to do and wanted something similar in this location.”

The company chose the 400-tph Double Barrel drum mixer plant from Astec. This plant is capable of capacities up to 500-tph and can make mixes with up to 50% RAP. The sequential mixing that happens in this plant ensures ingredients are added to the hot mixture in an order that allows better temperature equalization and even distribution of all particles throughout the mix - something important to production at Principio.

“With our materials, we don’t look at it as what percentage is recycled materials, we’re using terminology that indicates the percentage of virgin binder we’re replacing instead,” Lester said. “We have mixes that are 25%, recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) and 5% shingles that we use and we're also large believers in using a rejuvenator in most of our high recycled operations to ensure quality with these materials.”

The Double Barrel sequence also passes the material through a series of veiling flights that transfer the heat from the burner to the aggregate. The aggregate then exits the inner drum, dropping down into the outer drum shell, where paddles sequentially mix in RAP, liquid AC, and dust/filler in a flame-free environment. In this zone, the constituents are mixed for the remainder of the drum length before exiting to the drag.

Since Principio is a new venture, they also wanted to know they would have reliable support behind the location - during design, construction, and beyond.

“We know what Astec brings to the table as far as customer support,” Lester said. “Anytime you pick up the phone, when we were designing the plant, or if we had an idea for something we wanted to change, we never got an answer of ‘we can’t do that.’ It was always let's get into it, let's talk about it. We never asked them a question that they haven’t been able to answer. From their sales team to their parts guys, everybody from top to bottom answers when we call.”

A Push for Production

Conversations around building a plant for Principio Asphalt started in 2020 and the team visited the Astec team in Chattanooga to finalize details of the plant.

“We went with a 400-tph Double Barrel plant for this location,” Lester said. “We definitely had a lot of conversations back and forth with Astec and went down to be sure that’s what we wanted. Jeff Baugh was our salesman and made sure he was on top of everything for us.”

The Astec team worked hard to ensure that they were going to be able to achieve the aggressive timeline for construction that Principio was hoping to meet.

“We had an aggressive timeline to get this all done and Astec was ready to meet our demands,” Lester added. “We were having conversations in April of 2020 to order the plant and the plan was to put it up over the winter going into the spring of 2021. COVID however pushed us back quite a bit and we were finally able to get permitting done later in 2021.”

With the delay, the Principio team was busy gearing up for the paving season, so the team at Astec stepped in to help with construction. The plant was installed and ready for production in late 2022.

“We are very familiar with Astec plants and so our team was able to assist with installing the electrical and complete some initial training for this location, but the Astec team was on hand to help with anything we did need,” Lester said. “Our team at Diamond Materials has attended the Customer School events put on by Astec and we were lucky to have some of those people available to get this plant up and running and ensure its success long term.”

Principio also planned ahead at this location, anticipating the future needs of the market.

“We believe that there's going to be a large future here,” Lester added. “We planned for four silos upfront and we planned enough room that we can add four more silos at any time.”

And when they are ready to upgrade their facility, Astec will be ready to help.

“From the top down, everyone at Astec is always great to deal with,” Lester concludes. “No matter what issues we have, we can call and know we’re going to get an answer. In my eyes, yes, that plant is superior to any other plant out there but it’s the customer service that keeps us coming back and Astec treats you like family in that way.”

Sidebar: The Creation of Principio Asphalt

Principio Asphalt was built to serve a need in the greater Delaware market with three companies combining their years of experience to bring quality products and service to those looking for asphalt production. While the plant is located in the York Belvedere Sand & Gravel facility, the day to day operations at the plant are completed by Diamond Materials.

“With this partnership, our three companies bring generations of experience that dovetails seamlessly with our business goals of serving this region with superior products and customer service,” Dave Semple, President of York Building Products, said.

And the three companies operate knowing that they will always keep their customers top of mind.

“All three of us have a customer first mentality and that's why we all fit well together,” Paul Lester, Executive Vice President at Diamond Materials, LLC said. “We are definitely gaining a lot of ground with this new location and our market share can definitely grow between both of our companies as York is able to make good quality stone for us to make a superior product for our customers.”

About the Team:

York Building Products

Founded in 1939, York Building Products has held mining operations in Cecil County, MD, for over 55 years and maintains four asphalt plants in south

Diamond Materials

Based in Wilmington, DE, Diamond Materials has asphalt plants in Dover and Wilmington, and sand & gravel operations in southern NJ and DE.

P. Flanigan & Sons

Baltimore, MD-based Flanigan was founded in 1885 and has served the general Maryland region ever since. They launched their first asphalt plant in 1908 and have several plants within Baltimore. They also have operations in paving, concrete construction, milling, site development, utilities installation, and more.