At Rosal Stones, we are holders for the Rosales granting having the rights for its direct exploitation, it is located in the municipality of Hellín, province of Albacete (Spain), and there we exploit the natural stone commercially known as Albamiel.

We would like to talk about our quarry thru the vision of our functional director Jose Antonio Bermejo Núñez, mining technical engineer, which will explain, according his training and experience, his opinion about this exploitation, which is the pride and identity mark of our company.

How would you define the type of material that is extracted from the quarry?

It is a detrital rock that according the lithology would classified as a bio-clastic calcarenite. It was formed in the environments from coastal areas, mainly due the precipitation of the calcareous material and also due the influence of the fragments of the marine fauna such as bryozoans, mussels, echinoderms and gastropods, as well as due the action of the terrigenous material, which has created a rock mass of about 120 meters of thickness, and that remained waiting approximately 10 million years.

What is the type of extraction you are implementing and what advantages is it offering?

This an open-pit quarry, which combines the exploitation activities in the hillside and in the pit with descending cuts at low heights. This method is applied in very homogeneous and slightly fractured massive deposits, where the blocks are directly created over the rock mass, this also shows our outstanding quality regarding the extracted material.

Additionally, this exploitation method creates a safer working environment from the point of view of the accidents prevention, minimizing the risks at work as a consequence of the falls from heights at different levels, and on the other way, it also increase the stability of the front side, making it easier for the inspection and cleaning up activities.

How do you obtain the material?

The rock is extracted using mechanical methods with an arcwall coal cutter that advances tirelessly thru a previously defined mesh, which is delimitating the blocks precisely, mostly these blocks are suitable for its use as an ornamentation element, they are also utilized for the massive construction in some of the most luxurious buildings in the world.

According to your experience, what makes this exploitation special?

It is special due the Organization in the processes, and this is what better defines the Rosales quarry, that soon will complete 30 years of mining works, having a promising future ahead, with demonstrated reserves of 1,277,450 m³, and a 75% of utilization, which guarantees the supply of raw material for almost one million cubic meters, at least, until the year 2051.

It seems to be that there is nothing random, the exploitation reserves have a geometry perfectly designed to follow the Euclidean Postulates, where the right angles and the segments are continuously extended in all the directions, and disposed in a congruent manner.

If we talk about how the quarry is managed, compromise would be best word to the define the work of a family committed with the effort, passion and success, the same steps that were started some decades ago, and that today maintains the refinement, not just only in what is related to the economy, but also in the pursue of the aesthetic, following also the environmentally friendly processes, and the harmony with the people close to the company, but above all, there is a compromise with the safety.

Summarizing, as in many other facilities, there are a kind of intermediate states defining what is “right” and “wrong”, and these states are difficult to quantify due to the innumerable factors on which they depend. In the case of the Rosales quarry, the proximity to what is “right” does not allow the observer subjectivity.