OREANDA-NEWS. January 13, 2011. Koks holds debriefing session on mines under construction “Construction at the Butovskaya S.D. Tikhov mines are on schedule”, announced Sergei Diakov, Managing Director of Koks, at the debriefing.

Since 2008, subterranean work has been underway at the Butovskaya mine to lay incline shafts: a line shaft and a conveyor shaft. This May, subterranean work began to lay a northern lateral line slope. At the central mine site in 2010, construction began on buildings that will form a surface complex for supporting subterranean work: a dispatcher building, a ventilator for the main ventilation system, water preparation station, diesel depot and parking garage.

The mine is projected to reach planned capacity (1.5 million tonnes of coking coal per year) in two stages. The first stage calls for the commissioning of a longwall face for the Artelny stratum (August 2012) with an annual capacity of 650 thousand tonnes of coking coal. The second stage calls for the launch of a longwall face at the Kumpanovsky stratum (2014) with a planned capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of coal per year. Around 2 billion roubles will be invested into construction at the Butovskaya mine next year. According to the licensing agreement, the preliminary balance-sheet reserves of the Butovskaya mine total 73,324 thousand tonnes of coal. The time period for processing these industrial reserves is 30 years.

At the S.D. Tikhov mine, work was conducted in 2010 to prepare incline shafts to the subterranean passage. The line and conveyor shafts on stratum 26 have been outfitted; specifically, overpasses and above-mine buildings have been constructed, conveyor belts have been installed, shaft ventilation has been set up, and two shafts are being drilled at stratum 26. Work is presently underway to build shaft-water purification systems and a temporary amenity complex to service the employees. According to the technical construction plan that has been developed, the mine's planned capacity will be 3 million tonnes of coking coal per year.
Planned capacity will be acheived according to the following schedule:

• 1st launch stage: launch of a longwall face at stratum 23 in 2014 (planned capacity of 1060 thousand tonnes, including extraction from the development headings);
• 2nd launch stage: launch of an additional heading at stratum 26 in 2015 (planned capacity of 1,820 thousand tonnes, including extraction from the development headings);
• 3rd launch stage: launch of a second working face at stratum 23 in 2016 (planned capacity of 3,000 thousand tonnes, including extraction from the development headings).
1.2 billion roubles will be invested in construction of the Tikhov mine next year. According to the license agreement, preliminary balance-sheet reserves at the S.D. Tikhov mine total 109 million tonnes of coal. In 2010, the State Commission approved increasing the mine's balance-sheet reserves to 190 million tonnes.

“Commissioning mines over the next six years will allow the KOKS Group to further strengthen its position in coking coal extraction and coke production”, said Sergei Diakov, Managing Director of Koks. Information Butovskaya Mine, once commissioned, will produce coking coal in the Chesnokovsky region of the Kemero Coal Field. Koks is the licensee for this mine. S.D. Tikhov mine, following its launch, will produce difficult-to-obtain fat coking coal. The mine is located in the city of Leninsk-Kuznetsky at the Nikitinsk Coal Field.