Tarmac unveils new industry-leading sustainable asphalt plant at Barrasford

Tarmac has opened a new asphalt plant in Northumberland that incorporates innovative sustainable technologies to enhance its asphalt offering and reduce carbon emissions for its customers across the north east.

Replacing an existing facility at the site, the new plant in Barrasford brings more energy efficient processes, increased storage capabilities and higher production capacity.

The facility is able to lower carbon emissions by increasing the amount of recycled materials it uses, with the capacity to incorporate up to 45% recycled asphalt planings (RAP) in the asphalts it manufactures.

With almost 400 tonnes of storage across eight container bins for warm and hot mix asphalt, the new plant has almost doubled its storage capacity, offering greater availability of high-quality sustainable materials for customers to collect from the plant.

The increased storage also allows the facility to reduce energy use by running longer without stopping and restarting.

Due to these improvements, the site is approximately 55% more efficient and carbon dioxide from exhaust emissions has reduced overall by 18%.

The plant has also been futureproofed through the installation of burners that will allow it to transition to using cleaner dimethyl ether fuel in the future, which will contribute to lowering CO2.

John Riley, Regional Operations Director at Tarmac, said: “We’re always looking for ways to make our operations more sustainable and with this new plant at Barrasford, we’re able to take this a step further, reducing our carbon footprint as a business and also helping our customers to lower embodied carbon in their supply chains.

“The cradle-to-gate carbon footprints for both our warm and hot mix AC20 binder course are over 4% lower in the new plant than they were five years ago at the previous plant. Additionally, the new site’s expanded capabilities mean we can produce and supply a wider range of low carbon asphalts using RAP, bio binders and warm mix technology through our CEVO asphalt solutions.”

With Tarmac’s Barrasford Quarry based at the same site, the plant operates using as much material sourced from the quarry as possible. Conveyor systems are used to transport aggregates from the quarry to the plant, lowering Scope 3 emissions from the transport of raw materials.

The quarry and new asphalt plant will be operational for many years to come, with 20 million tonnes of aggregates consented to be extracted from the quarry.

Kieran Adam, Senior Operations Manager at Tarmac, said: “Barrasford Quarry and the former asphalt plant have been active for over 40 years and many of our on-site employees’ parents and even grandparents have worked here. The new asphalt plant means we can continue to provide high-quality jobs for local people in Hexham and the surrounding areas.

“The site also forms part of our strategic network of production plants and marks a significant investment into the north east, which will help us to better supply and connect with our customers in this region.”