MINSK, 13 August (BelTA) – IOOO Slavkaliy is preparing the site in the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory in Lyuban District, Minsk Oblast for the deployment of a shaft boring roadheader (SBR machine), the company's press service told BelTA.
The winding tower of the cage shaft is nearly ready. The multitier structure will be used to support an SBR machine weighing 400 tonnes. The only one of its kind in Europe, the shaft boring roadheader has already been made in Germany, has passed the tests, and is being prepared for shipment to the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory in late August. The design of the winding tower is unique, too. The tower was designed specifically for Slavkaliy. It weighs about 1,000 tonnes and is 53 meters high or as tall as a 17-story building.
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 (part of Mikhail Gutseriyev's Safmar Group) is in charge of implementing the project.
