Specially decorated with graffiti, the roof support was presented to Oxbow Mining in a ceremony at the Sanborn Creek longwall mine in Colorado, USA.
Sanborn Creek Mine, near Somerset in Gunnison County, produces 4 million tons of high-quality steam and metallurgical coal annually and has reserves of 40 million tons.
The roof support was one of 39 ordered by Oxbow Mining to supplement 100 DBT shield supports purchased in 1998. Delivery of the new shields began in December 2002 and will be completed by the end of January. The 15,000th shield was decorated with graffiti-style mining motifs by Ted Bartnik of the Graffiti-Galerie, Iserlohn, Germany. Each of these shields is capable of carrying two fully loaded Boeing 747 aircraft.
Since its foundation in 1995, DBT has used just under 400,000 tonnes of steel for the manufacturing of longwall roof supports alone, enough to build five Golden Gate Bridges or 54 Eiffel Towers.
Together, the shields manufactured by DBT are used to produce roughly 1 million tonnes of coal per day and would be capable of lifting 3 Cheops pyramids weighing 6.5 million tonnes each, the entire production of 24.4 million VW Beetles, or 110 Cologne cathedrals. Stacked on top of each other, they would be as high as a stack of 516 Eiffel towers, or 18 times the height of Mt. Everest.
DBT conveyors in service have a total length of 34 miles and the total length of hydraulic hose used is 1,218 miles – greater than the distance between Washington D.C. and Houston, Texas.
