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Post by John on Mar 19, 2012 7:33:10 GMT -5
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Post by erichall on Mar 17, 2015 6:51:11 GMT -5
nd we think we can compete with THAT?
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Post by John on Mar 17, 2015 8:27:34 GMT -5
Eric, if you go to the Wollongong University's longwall mining site, there is a list of Australian longwall faces with details like owners, equipment and annual production. The tonnages will "floor you". And all with a fraction of the manpower of UK collieries .
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Post by John on Mar 17, 2015 8:40:03 GMT -5
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Post by dazbt on Mar 17, 2015 15:25:49 GMT -5
The Joy 7LS7 at 6.6metres extraction is pretty good as shearers go, but not quite as impressive as smshogun's observed 30 foot (9.1 metres?) extracting Anderson Strathclyde shearer, that is surely some machine, drum diameters in excess of 4.5 metres, now that must have been a Wow !! (T.I.C.) I wonder what the production figures were from any face that had that particular machine installed ?
I'm glad now that ASL kept me in the 880mm range of machines.
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Post by John on Mar 17, 2015 16:22:14 GMT -5
The Joy 7LS7 at 6.6metres extraction is pretty good as shearers go, but not quite as impressive as smshogun's observed 30 foot (9.1 metres?) extracting Anderson Strathclyde shearer, that is surely some machine, drum diameters in excess of 4.5 metres, now that must have been a Wow !! (T.I.C.) I wonder what the production figures were from any face that had that particular machine installed ?
I'm glad now that ASL kept me in the 880mm range of machines.
Some pretty impressive faces around these days, glad they didn't have 400m long faces on the low ones we worked on, my knees are cringing just thinking of it.
Isn't there a max limit to face cutting height, and after that it's either take the top part of the seam first, then run a face under the old goaf/gob, or go top coal cave in? |
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Post by erichall on Mar 18, 2015 5:22:42 GMT -5
Eric, if you go to the Wollongong University's longwall mining site, there is a list of Australian longwall faces with details like owners, equipment and annual production. The tonnages will "floor you". And all with a fraction of the manpower of UK collieries . Sorry, John, I wasn't trying to be facetious. It's just that, so many people keep saying things like 'If only we hadn't closed all our mines, and various other comments similar. I well remember having an argument with my father, an ex miner of the pre-NCB days whilst I was working on the installation of FSVs, and telling him that he would be lost if I had to take him down a 'modern' mine. The same now applies to me. I used to think that, could we only have seams of about 5 foot, life would be grand. 3-4 foot seams were all I ever worked in. I well remember the first Trepan Shearer we ever installed and thought how large it was, and that it would go into a 3ft6in seam The thing that ruined the British Coal industry was, unfortunately, the thickness (thinness?) of the coal being mined, and the fact that everything had to come up one relatively large hole. This was brought to me by the experiences I had at High Moor, a drift mine, where we could and did achieve some, for us at the time some superb results. Compared with these sort of mines, we were only playing. |
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Post by John on Mar 18, 2015 5:53:12 GMT -5
Eric, if you go to the Wollongong University's longwall mining site, there is a list of Australian longwall faces with details like owners, equipment and annual production. The tonnages will "floor you". And all with a fraction of the manpower of UK collieries . Sorry, John, I wasn't trying to be facetious. It's just that, so many people keep saying things like 'If only we hadn't closed all our mines, and various other comments similar. I well remember having an argument with my father, an ex miner of the pre-NCB days whilst I was working on the installation of FSVs, and telling him that he would be lost if I had to take him down a 'modern' mine. The same now applies to me. I used to think that, could we only have seams of about 5 foot, life would be grand. 3-4 foot seams were all I ever worked in. I well remember the first Trepan Shearer we ever installed and thought how large it was, and that it would go into a 3ft6in seam The thing that ruined the British Coal industry was, unfortunately, the thickness (thinness?) of the coal being mined, and the fact that everything had to come up one relatively large hole. This was brought to me by the experiences I had at High Moor, a drift mine, where we could and did achieve some, for us at the time some superb results. Compared with these sort of mines, we were only playing. |
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 18, 2015 18:05:38 GMT -5
[/quote]I didn't take your remarks as facetious Eric, just giving some examples of high power/output faces. I agree working conditions are almost perfect, thick seam, few faults, level seams, everything the British Colliery Manager just dreamed of, plus high speed belts and a drift.
[/quote]
You could have been describing Daw Mill in its heyday there John.
Or even Aberpergwm on a smaller scale,not quite perfect working conditions,but raising 4,000 ton a week of Anthracite with CM`s,if it was`nt for the quality of the coal,i doubt Walters would carry on with such a small concern.
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Post by John on Mar 19, 2015 6:14:05 GMT -5
I didn't take your remarks as facetious Eric, just giving some examples of high power/output faces. I agree working conditions are almost perfect, thick seam, few faults, level seams, everything the British Colliery Manager just dreamed of, plus high speed belts and a drift.[/quote] You could have been describing Daw Mill in its heyday there John. Or even Aberpergwm on a smaller scale,not quite perfect working conditions,but raising 4,000 ton a week of Anthracite with CM`s,if it was`nt for the quality of the coal,i doubt Walters would carry on with such a small concern.[/quote] I don't think any UK pit could have competed with Australian or US pits Jim, Angus Place when I was there had an OMS of over 130 tonnes!!, and that was nearly 30 years back when many UK pits were still operating.
I'd imagine they would be on around 180 to 200 tonnes OMS before they went on care and maintenance a few months back.
Some single face pits would probably be on 400 to 500 tonnes OMS.
Back in the 60's we measured OMS in CWT's where face OMS would have been around 30CWT and pit OMS would have been around 20CWT if we were lucky.
What would Dow Mill's OMS be??? 30 tonnes?
I'm trying to be realistic Jim, UK mines needed lots of manpower due to conditions, modern Australian and US mines are coal factories, almost ideal mining conditions.
Angus Place had no outbye workers on after, and swing shift, if a belt stopped for any condition, one of the electricians would ride outbye from a face to find the cause and correct it, no belt patrolman or switch men.
The only outbye worker was the OTD Deputy.
On dayshift, the only outbye workers were the supply team, nightshift would be maintenance, belt, elecs and fitters carrying out essential maintenance.
Going back to UK pits, I recall we had almost double the amount of outbye workers as on the faces, on all shifts. That was pre conveyor automation too.
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 19, 2015 7:48:18 GMT -5
The US Walters Mining company has far better producing Mines than Aberpergwm,that i think we all realize,
I don`t know the carbon content of US Anthracite,does Australia have Anthracite[don`t believe they do]
So why does a large US company keep a piddling concern like Aberpergwm going?
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Post by John on Mar 19, 2015 7:58:27 GMT -5
The US Walters Mining company has far better producing Mines than Aberpergwm,that i think we all realize, I don`t know the carbon content of US Anthracite,does Australia have Anthracite[don`t believe they do] So why does a large US company keep a piddling concern like Aberpergwm going?
Not sure if Australia does have anthracite, they specialize in high quality metallurgical and steam raising coal. Victoria has a very thick seam of brown coal which is used to generate electricity in that state.
If Oz does have anthracite, it's probably in Queensland, but like I say, I don't know.
US does have a lot of anthracite in several states, Kentucky, Pennsylvania being two of them, I think Missouri, where I now live has anthracite too, not sure if we have a coal industry anymore, coalfields are in the north west of the state. |
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Post by dazbt on Mar 20, 2015 16:49:45 GMT -5
The US Walters Mining company has far better producing Mines than Aberpergwm,that i think we all realize, I don`t know the carbon content of US Anthracite,does Australia have Anthracite[don`t believe they do] So why does a large US company keep a piddling concern like Aberpergwm going? Profit is profit John however small, it seems unlikely that Walters Energy would run Aberpergwm at a loss or, by maintaining this mine at loss they would not have a reason to believe that as a result it wouldn't lead to future profits, Walters are renowned for their ruthless pursuit of mining profit and are certainly not a "set of inexperienced idiots". From Internet searching it would seem that Australia has 9% of the World's accessible anthracite deposits and that some major Pennsylvanian anthracite deposits are of a quality quite a bit superior to those of South Wales but not quite reaching the quality standards of some Russian anthracite. As an aside I seem to recollect reading that some of the best ever quality anthracite was mined, all be it, on a fairly small scale in County Kilkenny, Southern Ireland. |
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 21, 2015 5:29:11 GMT -5
Exactly Daz,they are making a profit,raising 4,000 ton with 70 men on the books,the only worrying part is,they are working off blocks of coal in the old districts,but the main driveage into the Treforgan take has been on standstill for a while,
Is this asset stripping as such,or being cautious in the present market?
I really did`nt think they had Anthracite in Australia,never heard mention before,but one is never to old to learn something new.
Any idea what the carbon content is of the Pennsylvanian Anthracite?
The best Russian Anthracite is i believe in Siberia.
Kilkenny/Tipperary Anthracite is up to 98% carbon,i believe the best Welsh was 92/93 at Abernant and Cynheidre
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Post by dazbt on Mar 21, 2015 6:07:26 GMT -5
John I owe you a major apology re the Australian anthracite figures, I've just re-read the article I supposedly gleaned this from and have to admit that I had misread it, although the whole article was headed Anthracite coal, the actual figures were for reserves of all coal types, back to the drawing board now, sorry !
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 22, 2015 12:25:35 GMT -5
Daz,don`t apologize as you may be right,
I googled a bit last night,and apparently Anthracite was found in Queensland in 1901,but no further info on whether it was worked or not,
But that was the only location mention i could find on Anthracite in Australia.
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Post by dazbt on Apr 14, 2015 1:21:12 GMT -5
The US Walters Mining company has far better producing Mines than Aberpergwm,that i think we all realize, I don`t know the carbon content of US Anthracite,does Australia have Anthracite[don`t believe they do] So why does a large US company keep a piddling concern like Aberpergwm going? Profit is profit John however small, it seems unlikely that Walters Energy would run Aberpergwm at a loss or, by maintaining this mine at loss they would not have a reason to believe that as a result it wouldn't lead to future profits, Walters are renowned for their ruthless pursuit of mining profit and are certainly not a "set of inexperienced idiots". From Internet searching it would seem that Australia has 9% of the World's accessible anthracite deposits and that some major Pennsylvanian anthracite deposits are of a quality quite a bit superior to those of South Wales but not quite reaching the quality standards of some Russian anthracite. As an aside I seem to recollect reading that some of the best ever quality anthracite was mined, all be it, on a fairly small scale in County Kilkenny, Southern Ireland. and talking of W.E's minimal profit grasping; seekingalpha.com/article/3067456-as-coal-companies-struggle-walter-energys-future-looks-bleak |
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Post by tygwyn on Apr 14, 2015 4:36:26 GMT -5
Well that answers the non movement of the new drift at Aberpergwm and the working off of the easy coal.
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Post by rorybagleys on Dec 16, 2015 16:20:01 GMT -5
Great info, thanks for posting. I really enjoyed reading through it.
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