OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2010. Southern Kuzbass Coal Company is set to extract 1.12 mn tons of coal at the Olzherassky strip mine this year, versus 560 000 tons in 2009, the company’s managing director, Victor Skulditsky said. Therefore, coal production at the mine could double this year. “We are set to raise production even further in 2011, if the market allows us”, Skulditsky said. In 8M2010, the Olzherassky mine produced 689 500 tons of coal, up 2.4x y-o-y.

Overburden operations surged over 3x, up to 7572 cu.m. “The surge in production is due to higher coal demand: we have decided to bring into operation an earlier conserved mining area and resume usage of excavators with a 5-10 cu.m bucket capacity”, Skulditsky said. He noted that the rated capacity of the Olzherassky mine, commissioned 1 September 1980, is 1.7 mn tons per year. In 2011, Southern Kuzbass is to start mining the Raspadsky block of the Olzherassky mine, where estimated reserves total 24.6 mn tons of coal.