Company

The company is working both

•  for the production of stone elements required by contractors and building craftsmen .
•  for the making of materials dedicated to the building sector and to the civil engineering.

Some key dates of the company

1820 : Creation of the firm by Léon Ouachée

1932 : The firm becomes OUachée and Corpechot.

2008 : Taking over of the direction by the firm BPE LECIEUX , first limestone extractor in the Oise area.

At the beginning , the Ouachée & Corpechot company’s only activity is the exploitation of quarries and the selling of the Saint-Maximin stone. By buying the company, the BPE LECIEUX firm – which was up to there limited to the exploitation of sandpits and the making of ready-fo-use concrete – diversifies its activities enabling to use almost 100% of the limestone deposit.

The deposit

The geological extraction zone of the Ouachée & Corpechot company is made of a large and soft limestone bank formed during the tertiary era, between 49 and 41 million years ago.

This bank offers different rock stratums that can be either soft, thin, hard or full of shells. It then proposes a large variety of morphologies and uses.

Today, the site is maid of

– a first layer , ten to 15 meters high , mostly used for crushing.

– a second layer where the stone is made of about ten ochre banks ; each one with a different grain.

After the extraction, the site is put back to its initial level thanks to embankment. This embankment is made possible because of its classification type III (*) that allows the company to use materials coming from various external construction and demolition sites added to its own cutting and extraction waste.

(*) Site of class III: for the sluggish residues of buildings or the public works, in particular.

To get more information, refer to the chapter “references“

The ground, in a few words

During the secondary era (from -250 to -66 million years), the sea has left in the Parisian area hundred of meters of sediments that created a vast limestone plateau.
During the tertiary era, (from -65 to -2.6 million years) , this plateau was recovered and uncovered a few times in a row by the sea coming from the North with a variable intensity, stopping either on a line Beauvais-Chantilly or Senlis-Reims.

The deposit is a LUTETIAN limestone ( a marine limestone ) which can be extracted either by the underground or on open-pit mine; and that’s the case in Saint-Maximin.

It’s in the 19^th century that the quarries really expanded rapidly thanks to the development of the railway. This means of transportation enabled to reach remoted areas that could not be reached by waterways.
The expansion of the railway also enabled to get the station and road materials cheaper and more accessible. Other people took advantage of this railway development such as the great urban works building contractors of the second empire (ex : Baron Haussmann in Paris).
Throughout the time and for all its uses, the Saint-Maximin stone’ reputation has increased notably and is today a world-recognized material.