Green blacktop

Located at Anshan Hi-Tech Development Zone, Senyuan Road and Bridge Co Ltd is a pioneer in the green campaign of China' road construction and maintenance industry.

China has 1.85 million kilometers of roads, including 45,400 km of highways, ranked as the second largest network in the world. China's highway network is expected to be completed by 2020, and the total length of its highways will reach 85,000 km.

According to statistics, 80 percent of China's is pitch concrete road. The life-span of the surface is about 15 years, and it means that 10 percent of China's roads need maintenance annually.

Traditional way of road maintenance is time-consuming, inefficient and produces more than 100 million tons of waste pitch per year which occupies a large area and causes heavy environmental pollution.

Chairman of Senyuan, Guo Songshen realized it and has put an emphasis on research and innovation of environmental friendly technologies for road maintenance.

"Independent research and innovation is the key to sustainable development and enterprise. The R&D investment of Senyuan takes up about 9 percent of our annual sales profit, " he says.

After a four-year effort, Senyuan launched China's first pitch road surface thermal regeneration and road repair unit in 2006, with its own independent intellectual property rights.

The unit can pave four to six meters of road a minute, which can be used after only five to six minutes.

One hundred percent of the pitch and other road construction materials are recycled and reused through the process, saving 40 percent of the road regeneration cost and reducing construction time by 50 percent.

Since 2006, five units have completed over 500 km road maintenance in Henan, Liaoning, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces and helped road construction groups save about 136 million yuan. This year, Senyuan has signed another seven sale contracts.

Senyuan is the sole manufacturer of the machines, which cost about 30 million yuan each. At present there are another four enterprises outside China contracted to produce it.

(China Daily 08/25/2008 page12)