Chepstow
PLANT
With over fifty years of experience in the UK’s earthworks, aggregates, and minerals sector, Chepstow Plant International is renowned for delivering outstanding service through innovative, sustainable, and safety-first contracting solutions.
By combining the UK’s most modern contracting fleet with award-winning safety standards and innovative technologies, including autonomous dump trucks and Net-Zero reduction initiatives, we deliver continuous and sustainable value to your operations.
SERVICES
Our contracting services include the full management and supervision of plant equipment, skilled operators, and work methodologies, ensuring efficiency, safety, and consistent delivery across every project.
We offer the deployment of our plant equipment, experienced operators, or both, under flexible hire terms. Charging options are available on an hourly, weekly, or monthly basis for medium to long-term contracts.
Our plant equipment is available on short, medium, or long-term hire without operators and excluding fuel, with flexible possibilities around maintenance, support and telemetry options to suit your project needs.
CAPABILITIES
Our fleet capabilities consist of Volvo, Bell, Komatsu and Caterpillar, that include:
- 20-75t excavators
- 25-45t articulated dump trucks
- 40-70t rigid dump trucks
- 10-50t wheeled loaders
- 18-40t bulldozers
Each asset comes equipped with the latest generation of on-board telemetry, ensuring a sustained reduction in total cost of operation and reduced fuel burn and emissions, whilst optimising productivity through improved reliability and fleet matching.
With a robust fleet of over 300 frontline assets, 95% of which are less than three years old, our asset management strategy is built to maximise uptime, productivity, and safety whilst consistently delivering fuel efficiency and pushing Net-Zero objectives.
We invest significantly in supporting one of the most modern and technologically advanced fleets in the UK, enabling us to deliver consistently reliable performance.
Through advanced telemetry and data analytics, we have the facilities to continuously monitor equipment in real-time. This allows us to optimise utilisation, reduce emissions, and maintain operational excellence.
Our data-driven approach also informs smart procurement and proactive maintenance strategies, minimising downtime and driving greater efficiency.
With the capability to manage projects exceeding 3,000,000 m³ per year, we deliver operational efficiency and innovative methods that ensure cost-effective, prompt, and sustainable outcomes.
Our comprehensive earthworks services range from large-scale earthmoving to precision-engineered groundwork, allowing us to deliver end-to-end solutions tailored to the unique requirements of each project.
Our commitment to excellence means using advanced techniques and innovative machinery to achieve best performance.
Whether reshaping landscapes or preparing foundations, we approach every project with precision, safety, and sustainability at the forefront.
Our core services extend to engineered earthworks, with extensive experience covering more complex operations within the aggregates and minerals sector. We even deliver pioneering solutions like vertically stacked landfill construction, to solve complex site challenges.
- Slope stabilisation (before and after slope failure)
- Embankment works
- Landfill cell construction (vertically stacked and conventional)
- Lagoon engineering modifications and ongoing management
- GPS control to high tolerance utilising excavators and bulldozers
Quarrying sits at the heart of our expertise, positioning us as one of the UK’s leading contractors in this sector.
With a flexible and diverse range of capabilities, we specialise in the extraction and processing of materials including limestone, granite, gritstone, kaolin, clays, sand, and gravel.
Backed by decades of experience and a commitment to continuous innovation, we specialise in extracting and processing everything from the hardest granite to the finest sand, tailoring optimal equipment and techniques for each material.
Our adaptability across varied quarry environments ensures we consistently meet and exceed client expectations.
We maintain a strong focus on safety, environmental stewardship, and operational efficiency, maximising resource yield while minimising disruption to local ecosystems and communities.
This results in optimal material extraction and responsible, sustainable quarry management.
Our bespoke fleet of wheel loaders and specialised equipment, such as long-reach excavators and grab cranes, can handle any material handling requirements from stockpile management and dredging to rail loading, clay mixing, and material processing.
Chepstow’s expertise also extends to pressurised material handling environments such as Steel Works and Power Stations (biomass and formerly coal-powered plant).
We prioritise optimal asset selection tailored to each operational requirement, ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity. Whether managing high-volume aggregates or fine clay mixtures, our solutions are engineered to handle complex material flows with precision and care.
Our integrated approach to material handling, combined with our commitment to safety and operational efficiency, ensures that we deliver comprehensive and reliable services tailored to the evolving needs of our clients.
As an essential support service to all its clients, Chepstow has a dedicated maintenance department, comprising of field service and workshop engineers to ensure maximum availability to all our clients and meet project deadlines.
Deploying a proactive approach to service and maintenance across its fleet drives optimal Total Cost of Ownership for the company’s clients on a national basis, comprising of routine in-depth inspections, daily checks, brake testing and lifting certificates.
For many customers, Chepstow delivers these routine inspections and compliance audits and more recently have become accredited to deliver air conditioning maintenance services across the UK. This growing area of the business strives too keep customers continually compliant, safe and operational at a cost-effective price.
CASE STUDIES
Overview:
Chepstow was appointed to move the material across a 3.5km haul to further allow the expansion and mineral extraction of a quarry within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. At the end of the quarry’s life, it will be allowed to flood, as part of the restoration scheme in the surrounding area. The overburden was comprised of lime waste, boulder clay and shale and material movements were subject to ensuring there was no future contamination as the area is identified as a potable groundwater aquifer within the wider water basin catchment area.
Challenge:
Large-scale earthworks project in a restricted and sensitive environment.
Solution:
An innovative vertically stacked landfill cell methodology, to safely contain 6mT of material, whilst meeting strict environmental standards.
Expertise:
Initial material layering was unsuccessful, so Chepstow drew upon its contracting expertise and suggested a pioneering groundwater protection methodology.
- Vertically stacked landfill – a first for the client’s UK and extensive global quarry portfolio, which allowed for the safe deposit of the 6mT material in a restricted floorspace and meet all of the client’s rigorous environmental objectives.
- Bulk earthworks – moving in total 2mT per annum to meet client requests and ensure that the quarry construction and civils projects in the area.
- Sequenced extraction – two teams working through layered seams of material to maximise efficiencies across the project.
- Environmental management – through sealing active lime compactor to achieve the necessary compaction rates.
- Ground stabilisation and compaction management – working through the specialist-designed layered specification.
Overview:
Our experience within the China Clay sector spans 30 years, with a core focus on mineral extraction to move approximately 6mT of through load and haul techniques, handling a further 4mT per annum via processed and refined material.
Expertise:
Long-term strategic OEM and customer relations allow Chepstow to leverage its considerable experience in the sector, showcasing these core expertise areas.
- Bulk earthworks – delivered through deploying 18 ADTs, 3 prime 75T excavators with 6 40-50T development excavators to optimise extraction rates and reduce unnecessary site-site movements.
- Material handling – objectives achieved by 15 wheel loaders ranging from 8-30T loading in stent, warehouse and train loading applications, moving both unprocessed and refined materials.
- Fleet management – advantages leveraged through purpose spec procurred assets, careful PPM schedules with on-site engineers, and tyre & GET management to deliver optimal total cost of ownership and operational performance.
- Telemetry-led performance analyis – utilises the next generation telemetry platforms with Volvo to deliver sustained performance improvements across fuel and idle management, driving 15-20% fuel improvements across the mine and considerable CO2 reduction / tonne of material.
Overview:
Chepstow manages the entire quarry lifecycle of the UK’s largest sand and gravel quarry (2 million TPA) since 2009, from extraction to final restoration across various phases.
Expertise:
- Mineral extraction – utilising selective dig operations across 7 varied mineral and overburden seams to maximise yield, delivering 100,000m3 per month of blended materials to the plant, including the utilisation of on-site mobile screening methods.
- Soil stripping – to continually transform the quarry for next expansion and development phases, particularly in spring and summer campaigns.
- Landfill cell creation – through directly placing interburden clays in purpose constructed cells, testing to client environmental standards to ensure long-term waste containment.
- Water management – via strategically placed pumps and drainage works to allow year-round site operations regardless of conditions.
- Restoration works – across critical aspects for each development phases final works and our expertise ensures long-term sustainability and environmental care through soils and overburden direct placement.
Overview:
A strategic client came to us to improve efficiencies at a long-term limestone quarry whereby the truck size was limited by the primary crusher hopper. The on-site 50T excavator was working at capacity, with low-idle time and high fuel burn but conversely the dumptrucks had high idle time due to loading cycle times.
Challenge:
Increase production by 15% / 100,000 TPA, whilst improving site sustainability and mitigating additional costs.
Solution:
Replace the on-site 50t excavator with a 75t excavator.
Expertise:
A digital-led telemetry approach resulted in substantial improvements on site.
- Fleet optimisation – expertise analysis of excavator pairings and Chepstow’s wider contracting fleet allowed redeployment of, switching the limestone quarry excavator from a 45T to 70T to meet targets.
- Telemetry management – resulting in tracking performance in near-real time establishing a 50% reduction in dumptruck loading times and a 5% actual fuel reduction in the prime mover, despite increase the excavator size.
- Net-zero advancement – allowed for a 30% output in material moved, 50% higher than the target, for only a 1% increase in fuel burnt, considerably lowering the CO2 per tonne.
Overview:
Chepstow introduced the UKs first fully autonomous articulated dumptruck into a live quarry environment – an industry first which was achieved alongside our long-term client and strategic suppliers.
The quarry has a 2.5mT output per annum, split across two sides of a quarry with 18 items of mobile plant continuously deployed.
Expertise:
A pioneering project that highlights Chepstow’s position as a technology leader who are able to safely integrate cutting-edge technology into real-world operations.
- Autonomous solutions – utilised a standard Bell B40E and its drive-by-wire interface for a plug and play autonomous system, driven by high precision GPS and robust radar sensors.
- Complex site integrations – were critical to delivering the project by ensuring site production remained unaffected, delivering an industry first: safe and sustainable integration between a manned operated dumptruck and a fully autonomous dumptruck.
- UK legislative change – key stakeholder engagement between governing bodies, clients and ourselves led to a seamless introduction of the next-generation autonomy technology, whilst providing the materials for the new adopted legislation.
- Safety management – to establish the autonomous operating zone (AoZ) on site, create new traffic management plans and ensure the site could safely integrate operated and autonomous machines.
- Next-Gen telemetry analysis – by leveraging a mix of live and granular historic data we provided our customer a platform to compare autonomous vs manual performance and deliver improved autonomous performance and site outputs, even when benchmarked to manually operated dumptrucks, ultimately delivering a more sustainable and cost-effective mineral extraction.
