Gipsbergbau Engel GmbH

Gypsum extraction in the Sauer Valley has a centuries-old tradition. The inhabitants of the Sûre Valley quarried gypsum in many small open-cast mines and burned it in field kilns on site. They used it to build houses and barns in the surrounding area or as fertiliser, which they shipped to Antwerp and Rotterdam on barges.

In 1946, the company Sartor & Engel o. H. G. was founded as a building materials industrial and trading company. In order to meet the great demand for building materials, some of the raw materials and products traded came from the first underground mine on the Rechberg near Olk, which was authorised by the Koblenz Mining Authority in the same year. In addition to the sale of gypsum raw materials, the company produced modelling, building and stucco plasters at its own plant in Trier until 1960. Until 1968, the Rechberg plant supplied gypsum rock from two mine fields. In 1966, further development began with the excavation of the Horst-Stollen mine on the Holt mountain above Ralingens in the immediate neighbourhood.

In line with the increasing specialisation in the 1970s the processing of gypsum was discontinued and the Building Materials Trading and Gypsum Mining divisions separated. Under the management of Peter Engel, Gipsbergbau Engel GmbH expanded the extraction of natural gypsum rock until 1982 in the Horst-Stollen mine and since then in the Horst-Peter-Stollen mine in the same extraction area.

Today, the plant comprises five construction sites. Under the management of Lydia Engel increase the conveying capacity by 40% in the last 15 years. 70,000 tonnes of high-quality gypsum rock are provided each year for cement production and as mineral fertiliser - by a dedicated team that is very familiar with the complex tasks of mining, with modern, reliable technology and in accordance with the high standards of safety and environmental protection. With the realisation of three further construction sites, the extraction of the natural raw material from Ralingen is secured for the coming decades.