LYUBAN DISTRICT, 23 January (BelTA) – The German company Herrenknecht will supply the first shaft boring roadheader (SBR), which is required for building the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory in Belarus in July 2018, BelTA learned from Igor Poryadin, chief specialist for permanent workings at IOOO Slavkaliy, the company in charge of building the factory.
The German company Herrenknecht is contributing to the project to build the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory as part of the contract signed with Slavkaliy's contractor Deilmann-Haniel. “The first shaft boring roadheader is supposed to be delivered in July 2018. Its assembly will take about three months. We will need another two to three months to install the tunneling equipment and the poppet head. Roughly speaking, we will be able to drill shafts using the machine in early 2019,” said Igor Poryadin.
Work is now in progress to build a refrigerating plant at the construction site. The installation of pipes and other kinds of equipment is nearing completion. The equipment is being connected to power lines. Startup and tuning operations are in progress. Three freezing units are scheduled for a trial run in late January for the sake of freezing bore No.2 since this one is prioritized. According to Igor Poryadin, all the general construction works in bore No.2 have been done. All the 40 freezing holes are connected for the sake of creating an ice wall, which will protect the drilling operation. For the first time in Europe Slavkaliy will use the SBR machines to drill ground at temperatures of up to 35C below zero.
Preparations are in progress to erect poppet heads. Each is about 56m high and weighs 800 tonnes. The erection of the first poppet head is supposed to be finished in June 2018, with the second one to be finished by 1 August. The poppet heads will enable the operation of the tunnel drilling equipment as well as the extraction of minerals later on.
There are plans to finish the first stage of the work to provide electricity to the construction site of the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory in April 2018. The construction of power lines to connect the construction site with the national power grid continues. A number of utility poles for a 110kV power line have been installed already.
BelTA reported earlier that in September 2015 Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and the businessman Mikhail Gutseriyev placed a time capsule at the construction site to mark the beginning of the project to build the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory using the Starobinskoye potash salts deposit. It will be the second company in Belarus to mine potash ore and make potash fertilizers with the output capacity of up to 2 million tonnes of potassium chloride per annum. As part of the investment project one mining facility will be built in addition to a processing plant, a gas turbine power plant the enterprise will need, railway infrastructure, access roads, housing infrastructure, and other kinds. The construction of the Nezhinsky mining and processing factory began in 2016. IOOO Slavkaliy is in charge of implementing the project.
