DTEK is a reliable partner for the communities, ensuring Ukraine's energy independence. The company provides mines with the necessary equipment for them to be able to produce coal that the Ukrainian coal-fired power plants need. The new machinery has arrived at the Bilozerska Mine. A KDK500 coal shearer produced by the Corum Miner's Light machine builders will help the miners produce coal from the new Southern Longwall 7. Its reserves are sufficient for the mine to operate in 2021-2022.
The new coal shearer is capable of producing over 3 thousand tonnes of coal per day. It can handle seams with a thickness ranging from 1.4 to 3.28 m in gas- and dust-hazardous mines. While designing the KDK500 coal shearer, the Corum Miner's Light engineers fitted the machine with a diagnostic and monitoring system tracking the condition of its major parts and automatically sending the readings to a display for visualisation. It gives the miners a real-time control over the shearer and helps them make sure that the equipment does not fail. The new machinery will be test-driven by the Coal Extraction Section No.2 team led by their supervisor Oleksandr Gusiev.
"This is the first time that we are going to use such a shearer at the Bilozerska Mine. Earlier miners at the Novodonetska Mine operated KDK500 shearers. At that time, I was there with my colleagues to gain some experience of operating and maintaining such equipment from them. The new machinery will replace the CLS-450 shearer not designed to deal with large coal seam thicknesses – 2.4 metres – found in the Southern Longwall 7. Generally, we work coal seams one or one and a half metres thick in our region. Compared to them, our new longwall is a real giant. That is why the shearer that we need to work it should be especially powerful. The shearer's motors deliver a total of 698 kW and weigh over 38 tonnes", said Yuriy Kulikh, a Coal Extraction Section No.2 operator.
Southern Longwall 7 is 290 metres long and holds 1.5 mln tonnes of coal reserves. The longwall is expected to produce an average of 2.9 thousand tonnes of coal per day. For this coal face, the mine has also received a new Corum Miner's Light-produced SPTs271M scraper conveyor, powered rooftop support units that were overhauled by Corum Druzhkovka Machine-Building Plant, a pump station, an UKVSh compressor system, and actuators from other manufacturers. The investments in the longwall preparation have totalled UAH 183.5 mln.
Now the miners are actively installing equipment on the new longwall face. It is planned to be launched in April. The new longwall guarantees stable jobs for DTEK miners at the Bilozerska Mine and embodies the DTEK Energy contribution in Ukraine's energy independence.