ARCHIVE

Cliffs longwall sets world record

CLIFFS Natural Resources' Pinnacle mine in southern West Virginia has set a world record of 32,43...

Justin Niessner
Cliffs longwall sets world record

The record set between the August 30 evening shift and the August 31 day shift shattered the previous record of 26,896 tons achieved last February by the Bogdanska mine in Poland.

“This is a significant accomplishment not only for our longwall crews, but for everyone who works at the Pinnacle mine,” Pinnacle general manager Jon Lester said.

“Everyone at Pinnacle played a role in our record performance without compromising Cliffs’ focus on safety.”

The longwall plow that set the record began production at Pinnacle in late 2010.

Cliffs worked with Bucyrus International to adapt the equipment’s design to the conditions of the mine.

“The collaboration between Bucyrus and Cliffs helped make this world record possible,” Cliffs North America vice president Mark Nelson said.

“We worked closely with Bucyrus to increase the ruggedness of various elements of the plow and make it more maintenance friendly. Our job now is to continue to safely and consistently produce coal to meet our customers’ demands from around the world.”

After much international success, Bucyrus teamed up with Cliffs’s North American coal operations in 2010 to outfit Pinnacle with the first automated longwall plow system in a US underground mine.

Bucyrus which was acquired by Caterpillar last year said increased US interest in longwall plows was due to improvements in capacity, speed, horsepower and electronically pre-defined cutting depths.

TOPICS:

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector, brought to you by the Mining Monthly Intelligence team.

A growing series of reports, each focused on a key discussion point for the mining sector, brought to you by the Mining Monthly Intelligence team.

editions

ESG Mining Company Index: Benchmarking the Future of Sustainable Mining

The ESG Mining Company Index report provides an in-depth evaluation of ESG performance of 61 of the world's largest mining companies. Using a robust framework, it assesses each company across 9 meticulously weighted indicators within 6 essential pillars.

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Exploration Report 2024 (feat. Opaxe data)

A comprehensive review of exploration trends and technologies, highlighting the best intercepts and discoveries and the latest initial resource estimates.

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Future Fleets Report 2024

The report paints a picture of the equipment landscape and includes detailed profiles of mines that are employing these fleets

editions

Mining Magazine Intelligence Digitalisation Report 2023

An in-depth review of operations that use digitalisation technology to drive improvements across all areas of mining production