[Feature]
In the fast lane in overseas markets A Northern Ireland aggregates company is powering ahead on the road to export success. Ambition hears about Conexpo’s solid foundations for growth.
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t is often said that the streets of large cities are “paved with gold” when people are being encouraged to seek their fortune in the big smoke. However, when it comes to the streets of London, the roads are, in fact, mostly paved with stone from right here in Northern Ireland. There are 2 million tonnes of asphalt laid inside the M25 every year but it is a little known fact that almost 50 per cent of the aggregates used by construction firms to resurface London’s roads come from Northern Ireland. The most significant chunk of that volume is produced and exported by Belfast-based Conexpo (NI) Ltd. Conexpo is that rarest of things in Northern Ireland – a company whose business is 100 per cent export, with customers in GB, Europe and the Far East. And with the support of Danske Bank, it is making significant investment in its facilities and machinery to help it take advantage of opportunities in new and exciting export markets. Conexpo was founded in 1991 from a core business in quarrying, and has identified export markets for the supply of locally produced high PSV (Polished Stone Value) aggregates. The McCluskey family, which owns Conexpo, has the quarrying business running through its veins. Chairman Robin McCluskey took over his family business W McCluskey & Sons Ltd. in 1965 at the age of just 19 when his father passed away unexpectedly. That business, based at Temple Quarry outside Lisburn, became one of the mainstays of the sector throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The superior rock quality in Co. Down provided the confidence the company needed to erect an asphalt plant at Temple Quarry. This development in the business created a growing awareness of the benefits of the premium aggregate. The first high PSV gritstone for use in asphalt surfacing was sent out in open-top containers that arrived in Belfast loaded with coal. They then went back across the Irish Sea and were distributed through the rail network, mainly to the south east of England where this stone was an increasingly vital component in meeting high quality road standards. Major PLCs from the UK began taking an interest in Northern Ireland quarries in the 1980s and in 1985 W McCluskey & Sons
Ltd. was sold to Colas, part of Royal Dutch Shell, with Robin spending the next six years managing its local operation. Conexpo was established initially as a marketing company but today it is also a producer in its own right, having acquired Cashel Quarry near Carryduff in 2009. It is now managed by Robin’s sons Jonathan and Stephen, (joint Managing Directors) and in recent years Conexpo has supplied aggregates to prestigious projects such as the Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong, the Dublin Port Tunnel and the Al Jubail airport in Saudi Arabia. When Conexpo started in 1991, Jonathan McCluskey admits they thought the market was “one ship a month” to GB. Today, the company exports almost one million tonnes a year of quality aggregates in bulk shipments from its Belfast Harbour Terminal at Herdman Channel Berth and directly employs close to 100 people. “We have a small number of customers who between them account for around 80 per cent of the market,” he explains. “Conexpo’s aggregates have become part of their production processes; we are an approved supplier and that has given us an advantage. Conexpo was also the first UK company to be certified to ‘CE mark high PSV aggregates’ for asphalt road surfaces. This fact has opened many doors in our efforts to enter new markets.” Having grown steadily, winning a major project in the Port of Rotterdam has led Conexpo to make a number of big investments in expansion in a relatively short period of time. Locally known in Holland as the MAVA project, the construction of a new 38km dual 5-lane motorway leading to the port is the largest civil engineering scheme ever undertaken by the Dutch authorities and will cost €1.5 billion by the time it is completed. In 2012, having established itself as a lead supplier of high PSV aggregates to the Dutch market, Conexpo was notified by the project’s design team that it would require 200,000 tonnes of surface course aggregates over an 18 month programme. It was awarded the contract over 26 other producers across Europe, because its aggregates best met the quality standards for durability, skid resistance and product grading. “We were confident that the product we had was perfect for the requirements in the Netherlands. We were one of only two
producers who could provide the grade of aggregate this massive road project required,” says Jonathan McCluskey. However, the scale of the project and the commitment to maintain it for 30 years, meant Conexpo had to effectively double its production and increase its consented reserve of stone. To meet demand Conexpo purchased two more County Down quarries earlier this year and that was followed by a £4 million investment in a new 5 acre site on the Harbour Estate to increase production capacity and increase efficiency. “We were losing production from having to change the screening and crushing settings on our machinery to create different sizes of aggregate,” says Stephen McCluskey. “The British market wanted one size and the European market wanted a different size and we were switching between them. Now we are saving those days by automating those processes, which in turn increases production time.” All puns aside, it is a ground-breaking approach to the aggregates business and the McCluskeys are not aware of anyone else who is doing what they are in terms of automation. “Most plants are in quarries and then the aggregate gets transported to the docks. We are doing it on site here, and loading directly to ships which is a different kind of process,” adds Stephen. Jonathan admits that they hadn’t expected to have to take so many major decisions in relation to expanding Conexpo in such a short space of time, but he’s confident the investment in growth will pay off. The expansion by Conexpo has been supported by Danske Bank, which has had a long-standing relationship with the company. Shaun McAnee, Danske Bank’s Head of Corporate Banking, says Conexpo is a business that other companies keen to export – such as those involved in the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce’s Danske Bank Export First programme – should seek to emulate. “Conexpo has a long history of exporting its products to established markets, but the company has continued to push itself to achieve more, identifying opportunities further afield. The family have taken the decision to invest in state-of-the-art machinery and facilities that will enable them to serve customers in new markets and
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