OREANDA-NEWS. August 31, 2007. Uralkali celebrated Miners Day and throughout the week ceremonies were held at the Company’s divisions which ended with a party. Eight Company miners were awarded with the Miner’s Glory Honors of the First, Second and Third degree for their conscientious labour. Sixteen Uralkali workers also received Honorable Diplomas and the Official gratitude from the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation.

Leading up to Miners Day, Uralkali miners have achieved good production figures. They managed to extract 10,958 mln tones of potash ore during January-July 2007, 31.2% more than the same period of 2006. The results of 7 months show, that miners have been following entirely the intensive production plan for 2007to increase the extraction of potash ore which had been set as a priority following the loss of Uralkali’ oldest mine in October 2006.

A Program to re-equip the mines over the next few years is being implemented in order to increase labor productivity, and decrease repair and service costs. ;Ural-20A has benefited from that re-equiment. For example, Bunker-loader BP-15, which has a carrying capacity of 15 tones is being substituted by BPS-25, which can carry 25 tones. In addition, the fleet of self-propelled cars is being equipped with BC-30 wagon with a carrying capacity of 30 tones – two-times more than its predecessor BC-15 had.

In 2007 Uralkali invested 210 mln rubles into new mining machinery in the context of the technical re-equipment Program. The Company bought 6 mining combines, 5 bunker-loaders and 9 self-propelled cars. The machinery has been partially delivered to the mines of Uralkali.
This equipment upgrade is also aimed at transferring the main mining machinery to1140W voltage mode instead of 660W. Higher voltage minimizes energy loss and increases the length of purifying cameras meant for ore extraction from 150-190 meters to 300 meters, which, in practice, leads to a decrease of pre-working volumes by 30%. Currently, over 1\4 of the mining machinery of Uralkali work in 1140W mode.

The short-term plans for Uralkali’s miners are connected with the implementation of the mechanized plant in order to increase the work rate, debottlenecking in the technological process and shortening the terms of mining machinery repair that will according to miners’ opinion also provide the growth of the production figures.

Technical re-equipment allows Uralkali to increase the volumes of ore extraction without increasing the quantity of the machinery fleet. Since 2000 the volumes of ore extraction for one combine have grown by 40%. In the future, Uralkali plans to apply this strategy of re-equipment.