Lindani Dube PLANS to operate three continuous miner (CM) sections at 3-Main Underground Mine are at an advanced stage as part of on-going recapitalisation efforts by Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL).
Managing director, Dr Charles Zinyemba, revealed the development in his remarks to employees who witnessed the recent official commissioning of a new weighbridge facility at WPC-10.
“We want to have three new continuous miner systems at 3-Main and that is going to happen,” he said.
“We expect to see that happening by the start of Q2 2022. The second CM will also be coming in during 2022 while the third one is expected at the start of 2023.”
A continuous miner is a machine with a large rotating steel drum equipped with tungsten carbide teeth that scrape coal from the seam.
According to Kentucky Coal Education, a CM can mine as much as five tons of coal a minute — more than a miner of the 1920s would produce in an entire day.
Remote controlled continuous miners are used to work in a variety of difficult seams and conditions and robotic versions controlled by computers are becoming increasingly common.
The official commissioning of a new weighbridge facility at HCCL’s WPC 10 is strategic to the company’s operations and goes a long way towards enhancing improved customer service, reduced truck congestion and shorter lag time in case of breakdowns.
Weighbridges are critical in determining the weight of industrial vehicles and, simultaneously, the weight of their contents.
For a giant mining company like HCCL, the investment is significant given that most of the firm’s products are often sold by weight and, thus, efficient weighbridges are ideal for performing quick continuous vehicle measurements to record these metrics.
Dr Zinyemba has stated that following the recent official commissioning event, which he presided over, the coal logistic section’s operations have improved.
He indicated that the successful completion of the project should pave way for establishment of a third weighbridge in the short-term.
“This new facility is user friendly and has improved technology. Be assured that this is not the last weighbridge we will construct as we are working on having another one at Chaba Mine to improve our product accountability,” said Dr Zinyemba.
“The lag time for customers is set to reduce as we can use other weighbridges if the main one is on breakdown. With increased traffic from the mines from the amount of coal product currently being churned out, we need to have adequate weighing facilities and security systems so that we don’t have product accountability issues,” he added.
Speaking at the commissioning event National Employment Council (NEC), representative and secretary-general for the workers’ committee, Mr Johnson Nyathi, said the introduction of the new weighbridge would improve product movement in terms of trucking.
“Trucks will no longer take long to weigh in and out, we thank management for the step taken as well as the project team,” he said. — HCCL Bulletin
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