Marble - Colorado Geological Survey

Transportation
The transportation of all material except for
tile blocks will be to a facility or storage area
near Basalt. The tile blocks should be shipped
to a custom tile fabrication plant .however,
should one not be available they too would be
offloaded at the Basalt facility. This will involve
haulage of material during the quarry
season by three trucks. The trip from the quarry
to the pavement is 3.8 miles and will take one
hour. From this point to Basalt will take an
additional hour for a total round trip distance
of 50 miles. CGS assumed an hour for combined
loading and unloading by quarry and fabrication
personnel for a total round trip time of
five hours. The total material to be shipped to
this station would be 96 to 204 large blocks at
one block per trip, 96 to 204 tile blocks at three
per trip, 840 to 1,785 tons of palletted ashlar
strips or strip material at 25 tons per trip, and
840 to 1,785 tons of CaCO^ at 25 tons per trip.
The blocks would require block haulers. CGS
has calculated the transportation as a subcontract
at $.19 per ton mile. An additional freight
cost is the movement of finished slabs to a distributor
or first point of sale. CGS has assumed
that it would average $20 per slab.
FABRICATION PLAN AND COSTS
Overview
The fabrication of useable material for the construction
industry is the most capital intensive
piece of the marble industry. First, a seven acre
parcel of land is necessary then a building of at
least 60 times 300 feet is necessary to house
the cutting and polishing equipment. The land
and building would lease for $40,000 per year if
one could be obtained, or purchased for
$300,000. It takes six people to run a fabrication
plant of the size compatible with the expected
quarry production. These people should
produce 2,500 square feet of slab stock in an
eight hour shift which is approximately the
amount contained in a large quarry block. The
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minimum equipment for this operation includes
a gang saw and a polishing machine and
various other pieces of equipment of lesser
expense. The cost of this equipment is
estimated at $2,500,000. The production at the
fabrication plant also creates waste. The blocks
which are 5.5 feet wide are fed through a gang
saw which saws them into .75 inch thick slabs.
The saw kerf is .25 inch in thickness. This
creates a waste stream of wet fines amounting
to about 60 cubic feet per block. Additionally,
breakage and unacceptable colorations increase
the waste to 35 percent of the original block or
79 cubic feet.
A tile line would allow all of the production
to remain under one roof. However, the tile
block production is insufficient to justify the
high capital expense which is estimated at well
over $2,000,000. For that reason the tile blocks
must either be sold to a nearby tile fabricator,
joint ventured with another producer, or shipped
for toll fabrication. CGS used the price
quote from Idaho Travertine of $2.67 per
square foot in the cost consideration. The
ashlar product would be trimmed at the fabrication
facility by saw and quillotine. The only
additional cost would be quality control for
material too porous, or containing pyrite. The
main use of a Lyons Sandstone ashlar is in exterior
building facing. Examples of ashlar can
be seen on most of the buildings on the University
of Colorado campus in Boulder. CGS assumed
pyrite ashlar blocks would only be used
in interior construction.
Alternatives
The alternatives to in house fabrication of slab
material include the sale of mill blocks to custom
fabricators or the shipping of blocks to
have them tolled by outside fabricators and
then returned in the form of slabs for marketing
and sale. The property was evaluated on
the premise that mill block sale to Yule Marble
Corporation was possible not to exceed 10,000
cubic feet per year at $12 per cubic foot. This
yielded a NPV of $355,949.