OREANDA-NEWS. November 20, 2012. Conveyor K1 has begun operation following a large scale renovation at the crushing and concentrating plant of Mikhailovsky GOK (“MGOK”) (part of METALLOINVEST). The renovation works resulted in an increase in the conveyor’s transport capacity from 2,900 tonnes of crushed ore per hour to 3,200 tonnes. This will allow for the quicker filling of the bin in the intermediate and fine crushing section.

Sergey Kretov, Managing Director of MGOK, commented: “The modernization of the crushing and processing plant is one of the main projects of the production modernisation programme being carried out at the works by METALLOINVEST. With regard to the conveyor circuit, two crushers will be replaced this year, and the long term plan is to upgrade the mills to more efficient ones. Upon completion of this long term investment project, production volumes of concentrate at MGOK will increase to 17.9 million tonnes per year.

Conveyor K1 is a strategically important piece of production equipment consisting of a conveyor circuit that provides ore to the processing plant which produces concentrate. The transportation of the entire volume of ore from the large crushing unit to the intermediate and fine crushing section is done by two conveyor belts, each of which delivers up to 50% of the materials processed at MGOK’s concentrating section. There is not one single mining and processing plant in the CIS today that transports such a significant volume of ore via two conveyor belts.