Gas pipeline construction in Poland

FAE heads crush and stabilize Carpathian slate.

Drocomplex s.c. is a company located in Racibórz, Poland. Established in 2000 by Marcin Bukowski and Krzysztof Byrski, it has 20 employees. Despite its size, the company has already purchased six FAE machines.

“In 2010, we bought an FAE MTH. In 2014, we bought an SSH, then another used MTH. In 2017, we bought a new STABI/H, and in 2020 we increased our fleet of machines with two new models - an MTH and a STABI/H,” Marcin explained.

The company does road work (municipal, district and provincial roads), builds logistics sheds and the related road systems, railroads, and sometimes does soil reclamation work and other special jobs.

“We are always involved in interesting projects,” Marcin continued, “but today's story is really unusual. We were asked to build the DN1000 Strachocina gas pipeline located along the Polish border.” The construction site is in the town of Komańcza, in the Bieszczady mountains of southern Poland. "We dug up the ground at the spot and, using our FAE machines, ground up the underlying rock until it became very fine sand. We also used the ground up material, mixed with cement, to create temporary roads so we could move around in the work area," Krysztof continued.

An especially difficult task because the pipeline crosses mountains with slopes that can be up to 45 degrees, and the weather is often a problem— cold and snow in the winter, rain and scorching heat in the summer.

“Despite these issues, we were able to finely crush 400,000 m² of material for the fill and stabilize 50,000 m² of temporary roads with cement. We relied on our MTH to crush the fill material. The SSH also proved very useful. We used our old machines (the MTH is a 2010 model and the SSH is from 2014). They both performed extremely well attached to Fendt 936 tractors. They worked the land 25-30 cm deep and crushed Carpathian slate mixed with clay as big as 50 cm,” Marcin concluded.

Considering that this company took the contract over from another company that was unable to crush this type of material and meet the client’s needs, it is clear just how much FAE machines bring to the table. After an initial trial period, Drocomplex s.c. was awarded an 18-month contract. "This is probably the best advertisement for FAE machines!" Krzysztof added.