|
Post by Sam from Kent on May 8, 2012 7:51:08 GMT -5
John might be interested to see that a mining firm have applied for permision to mine for potash near York
|
|
|
Post by John on May 8, 2012 12:12:06 GMT -5
John might be interested to see that a mining firm have applied for permision to mine for potash near York Ye h I read a paper on it Sam, going to be a large mine when it's up and running. Seems they are not going to have the rock shaft to the surface, but plan to drive a drift down to the half way mark, install four huge winders in a chamber and use 30 tonne capacity skips to lesson the impact on the environment. They also are going to just have a small process plant to crush the ore, mix to a slurry and pump at high pressure to a huge process plant at Teeside. They are expecting to wind approx 5 million tonnes of ore up both shafts per year, large skipping equipment in the manriding shaft and four independent winders in the upcast shaft. This will be one of the worlds, if not THE biggest potash mine.
|
|
|
Post by Wheldale on May 8, 2012 16:19:03 GMT -5
John might be interested to see that a mining firm have applied for permision to mine for potash near York Ye h I read a paper on it Sam, going to be a large mine when it's up and running. Seems they are not going to have the rock shaft to the surface, but plan to drive a drift down to the half way mark, install four huge winders in a chamber and use 30 tonne capacity skips to lesson the impact on the environment. They also are going to just have a small process plant to crush the ore, mix to a slurry and pump at high pressure to a huge process plant at Teeside. They are expecting to wind approx 5 million tonnes of ore up both shafts per year, large skipping equipment in the manriding shaft and four independent winders in the upcast shaft. This will be one of the worlds, if not THE biggest potash mine.The shafts will be similar to what I saw in South Africa. Kloof Goldmine main shaft was 10m in diameter. Had 4 cages and 6 skips. most shafts I saw out there had two skips and two cages per shaft. Some of the smaller shafts I saw, the cage sat in a bridle, when man riding was done, the cage was removed and replaced with a skip! Many a time I was in a cage and you could hear something falling down the shaft then bang! A rock smashed onto the cage! Anyway I digress! lol The new potash mine sounds exciting, hopefully it will show the Uk is still good at mining!
|
|
|
Post by John on May 8, 2012 17:10:47 GMT -5
Boulby's skips were convertible to large manriding cages, only took a few minutes to change them over, I forget now how many men they could hold.
Yes, it looks like it's going to be an impressive set up, won't take long to train "green" miners to operate CM's, I saw many men who were new to mining at Boulby during the early years, we even had a fair few ex NCB miners too who were totally new to Bord and Pillar mining, they adapted pretty quickly. I was lucky, I'd already been working in Bord and Pillars with BG at East Leake for a couple of years.
The main problem with the new mine will be there is no longer a skilled pool of trained miners that Boulby relied upon in the 70's! Many of the ex NCB/BC lads are pushing late 50's now, and for them to take on the challenges of very deep mining and extremes of temperatures will be offputting for any employer. They will have to poach Boulby's trained staff, which won't sit well with Cleveland Potash!!
I recall our foremen at Boulby, they had to sign a contract and legal document stating that they could not work for another Potash Mining company in the UK for at least a five year period after they left CPL. The reason for that was in the 70's it looked like two to three new potash mines were going to be sunk, and they didn't want their inside secrets known to other companies.....
|
|
boaz
Trainee
Posts: 37
|
Post by boaz on May 9, 2012 1:25:37 GMT -5
It may be that Sirius expects the owners of CPL to buy the "rights", thus big returns with little investment from Sirius
|
|
|
Post by John on May 9, 2012 8:17:22 GMT -5
I can't see that to be honest, if CPL wanted more mineral rights to expand, why buy into another company, they could have negotiated to expand their take to the south, a lot cheaper than investing in a huge project such as Sirius. Sirius have plans to use a large TBM to drive the drift to the half way point then use a different method of shaft sinking with a large boring machine. Dunno, but it sounds like they could run out of cash before they hit potash. It's a gamble, a big gamble, the big unknown is "what will mining conditions be like at that depth"? CPL did some of the groundwork, ie found driving roads in salt made for more stable main roads. Just to show the convergence at Boulby, the main subs were housed north of the shafts not too far from the control room. Height was about 15 feet. Before the new main subs location were finished, No2 fan chamber in a specially fabricated steel room, the roof had lowered to where I couldn't get my fingers over the top of the switchgear, all that happened in just over two years. The main conveyor road past the control room had a steel ladder over the belt, Gerry Meads was over six foot tall, he was our mining shift supervisor on C shift, he used to stand upright on the ladders platform with plenty of headroom. Just before the road was backripped, even I had to bend my back to clear the roof on that ladder. So how bad will convergence be at the depth Sirius will be working??
Sounding negative, I know, but I think they are going to be in for a financial shock.
There were a few companies way back when I started at Boulby going to sink mines around Whitby plus one company who was going to solution mine the potash, none of them went ahead because of the "unknown factors".
I think in hindsight, CPL would have poured more money into bigger shafts, more hoisting ability etc had they had the confidence back in the 70's, but they realised it was an unknown and there was no experience to fall back on, but like two collieries in the same coalfield. We all knew if one had no problems at all, chances were another could encounter every problem in the world, from soft floor to faults not shown on test borings.
I think they should proceed with caution until one shaft has been sunk to below the Anhydrite layer, at least they will get some rough idea once they start driving the first roads. They can always sink the two shafts with plans for upgrading the winding gear after they have tested the conditions, but a bit late after buying all the winding gear etc and conditions beat them.
Just my two cents worth, as I'm still pretty skeptical.
|
|
|
Post by John on Jun 2, 2012 12:27:23 GMT -5
Just doing a search around reveals potash is BIG business these days, Canadian companies are expanding big time, this video shows one of them and they are installing 60 tonne skips!!!
|
|