OREANDA-NEWS. July 08, 2013. Vorkutaugol, one of Russia’s largest coal mining companies and part of the Resources division of Severstal, has commenced mining coal from a new longwall at the Vorkutinskaya Mine. The new longwall is located at the mine’s Third coal seam, which holds more than 800 thousand tonnes of coal, and coal extraction at the mine has now recommenced across two breakage faces.

Preparation of the new longwall 932?yu began last March. It was first scheduled to go on stream at the end of 2012, but operations were discontinued due to an explosion in the production unit of longwall 832?yu, The Triple coal seam. The air roadway and the face were not affected as the explosion occurred more than half a kilometer from the production unit, however, as longwall 832?yu has less than 100 thousand tonnes of coal left in face, the company’s management opted to close it down.

Since then, coal has been mined from the central block at longwall 1022 in the Fourth coal seam. In the meantime, longwall 932?yu has been driven using a fast track method and outfitted with all necessary equipment.

Coal will be mined from new longwall 932?yu using the German-made Eickhoff Shearer Loader Type SL 300, КМ-144 Complex and Anzhera-34 Conveyor. The average coal seam thickness is 2.8m and the longwall is more than 220m long. It is aimed that the new longwall to produce 120 thousand tonnes of coal per month from July. The face is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year after which the equipment will be relocated to a new face.

Svyatoslav Smelkov, Director of Vorkutinskaya Mine, commented: “Putting the new longwall on stream is of great importance to the mine and the whole of Vorkutaugol. For more than 3 months we have run only a single breakage face. With the new longwall, the mine will considerably increase our monthly output. This will help meet both the mine’s and the company’s production targets.”

Once the new longwall has reached the desired monthly output, the Vorkutinskaya Mine aims to extract a total of some 200 thousand tonnes of coal per month across its two faces.