The greenfields underground coal mining project is in the Turkish Soma-Manisa area and is planned for a 15-year mine life. The project includes 36.5 million tonnes of coal production with the LTCC mining method.
The first longwall mining system will start production at the Eynez East mine in the third quarter of 2014 and will have a production capacity of 2.7 million tonne per annum. The coal face has a length of 180m.
The second longwall will be in operation six months later.
Caterpillar already supplies four out of five longwall underground mining systems in operation in Turkey.
Caterpillar product line manager, longwall mining Martin Wetter said the company had strengthened its position as the premier partner of the Turkish coal mining industry, with the installation of the new longwall systems at Soma Eynez East.
“We are pleased that our longwall equipment will be the workhorse recovering this very thick seam.”
Each of the two identical sets of longwall mining equipment includes a Cat EL1000 shearer, two Cat AFC PF4 face conveyors and a Cat BSLPF4 beam stage loader including an SK111 crusher.
Caterpillar will also supply the complete electrical and hydraulic power supply systems as well as the cooling and spraying water supply system and the complete automation system for the longwall face.
The roof supports for the longwall systems will be provided by Caterpillar (Zhengzhou), a Chinese company acquired by Caterpillar in 2012. Each longwall system includes 95 Zhengzhou roof supports with a shield centre of 1.75m and an extended height of 3.2m, transition and gate end shields, as well as roadway shields for tail and maingate.
The roof supports will be equipped with Cat PMC-R roof support controls.
The longwall systems supply agreement also includes extended service provided by Caterpillar – two six-month contracts for supervision and support for installation, commissioning and operation are part of the package.
Borusan Makina Kazakhstan – the Caterpillar dealership for Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan – will provide customer support.
The LTCC mining method to be employed at the Eynez East underground coal mine is a special type of longwall mining applicable to seams thicker than 6m.
Conventional longwall equipment has not yet been designed to operate successfully in seams thicker than approximately 6m mining height.
LTCC enables increased recovery for only an incremental additional cost. The lower section of the seam is cut by a conventional longwall set-up except that each longwall roof support has a longer rear canopy extending past the base into the goaf.
The extended rear canopy has a sliding rear canopy fitted into each one. An additional AFC is attached to the rear of the shields and runs directly below the canopy openings.
As the face moves forward, the coal left above the section cut by the machine falls onto the extended canopies, providing the goaf is caving normally.
The sliding rear canopies are sequentially opened, and the coal falls through onto the rear mounted AFC. The maingate stage loader is extended beyond the face conveyor to enable the rear mounted AFC to discharge coal directly onto it and carry coal to the maingate conveyor belt system.
