AMECO S.A. is a company that was formed in 1939 by a former engineer of the Alsatian Potash Mines in a region of France laying in between the “Vosges” mountains and the Rhine river, right at the border of Germany and Switzerland. These Potash mines had materials handling requirements, and Mr. WAGNER decided to found a company to satisfy the need for materials handling equipment and/or maintenance of such materials by its former employer.
When Mr. Wagner formed AMECO, it was with the heart of a pioneer that he did so. The challenge was to build in Alsace, nearby his prime client, the then flourishing Mines Domaniales des Potasses d’Alsace, ail type of equipment they might need in their successful operation, to extract, wash, transform from raw salt to the final product as well as shipping by rail road, trucks, and barges on the Rhine River, of ah products deriving from the Potash Industry. For a while, this challenge was large enough for this small closely owned company since the products they proposed this client were numerous and consisted of:
• machinery repair, belt conveyors for use in the mining galleries, skip systems to lift the products to free air, belt conveyor systems, chain and belt elevators, chain conveyor systems, vibrating feeders, screens and conveyors, crushers, bag filling stations with scales, bag handling conveyors, bag handling truck, railroad cars and barge loading machinery, tripper cars, stackers, reclaimers at first the old double rail slewing design, and the wheel on boom stacker reclaimer design, barge loading machinery, and open top railroad cars unloading machinery using a curved chain elevator design.
As the company developed into different markets, such as glass factories for which AMIECO was for a long time a World leader, The Electricity of France requiring bigger and bigger storage facilities of coal for firing their turbines to Whom AMECO sold many large capacity (for the time) Bucket Wheel Stacker Reclaimers.
At that time, AMECO had got several business lines, independent in their own decision as far as product development,
technology used and profitability.
In the fifties, AMECO was well known in France and the French territories, as well as European countries around France. Russia and the Eastern countries were also knowledgeable of AMECO, as well as the third world countries to which AMECO used to quote through world bank type projects.
AMECO was always a leader technically and in this light the company has successfully pioneered the Markets with events like:
• Designing and manufacturing with great success the first Portal Reclaimer in the world in 1965 for Morocco phosphate mines. This effort was then followed by all other German reclaimer manufacturers. First by PHB who at that time patented its own design suing two separate arms instead of the then patented AMECO design having the arms articulated from one to the other.
• Designing and manufacturing the first glass batching plant using electronic scales and controls for very high precession small products addition, in 1968 in Belgium.
• Entering the North-American market with reclaimers although American firms were more prone to use large pay loaders. In 1969 AMECO started—up successfully the first portal reclaimer ever used in USA, and one year later, the client informed the news papers in its area that this machine paid itself back in less than one year. Needless to say that after that AMECO sold several machines in this country.
• Building the first reclaimers for handling wood chips in 1971 for the Valiant Oklahoma plant of Weyerhaeuser Company where four AMECO Portal Reclaimers are still in operation in an outdoor storage area, in rough climatologic situation.
• Building the first circular raw materials homogenizing system using an inclined chevron method to reclaim continuously towards the same direction with the circular bridge reclaimer, in 1980, for the two American cement factories.
• Building the largest circular outdoor storage system using a circular side scraper and a stacker mounted onto a central column. The storage diameter is 110 meters and the reclaiming rate is 130 cords (736m3/h).
• Building the largest portal reclaimer in the world, having a span of 63.5 meters for a Urea plant in Bangladesh.
GENERALITY ABOUT PRODUCTS SUPPLIED BY AMECO
To these days, AMECO has somewhat reduced its line of products to the ones where the company seams to be most effective and competitive, and is interested in the sales of any material handling, machines handling, bulk and/or bagged products, but has a special interest for:
1) Reclaimers Portal Reclaimers of all kinds, Semi and three quarter Portal reclaimers of any kinds, Side scrapers of all kinds, Traveling and sluing reclaimers located centrally to the pile and of all types, Blending Type Bridge Reclaimers of any kind, prilling Tower Reclaimers of any type, Bucket wheel Stacker/reclaimer or Bucket Wheel reclaimers.
2) Shiploaders AMECO designs and supplies all kind of mechanical shiploaders handling bulk products of any type, as well as bagged products, this line includes traveling, sluing and luffing types, telescoping type, quadrant type, stationary with luffing telescopic boom, etc..
3) Stackers AMECO designs and supplies all kind of mechanical stackers including fixed single wing traveling stackers, fixed double wing traveling stackers, luffing single and/or double wing traveling stackers, single wing sluing and luffing traveling and none traveling stackers.
4) Prilling Towers Ameco designs and supplies a full line of prilling tower reclaimers either flat bottom or conical types. These machines are used in the process of manufacturing fertilizers such as Urea and Ammonium Nitrates.
5) Miscellaneous Furthermore, AMECO handles a line of smaller products such as vibrating feeders, vibrating conveyors, paddle mixers for ash handling, automatic bag opening and emptying machines, truck loading machines for bags, railroad car loading machines, etc..
AMECO can supply conveyor systems when integrated in stacker/reclaimer systems or shiploader systems.
