The ZZM-KOPEX Group on the Chinese Market
16 January 2007
Contract of Prestige
The new year KOPEX has commenced in a great style. On January 2, 2007 the company from Katowice signed the contract with the biggest Chinese coal mining company – Chine Shenhua Energy Company ltd. in Pekin. The contract of USD 33 150 000.00 ( PLN 95 571 000.00) includes the delivery of TAGOR longwall mechanized roof support together with the electro-hydraulic monitoring and controlling system. The deliveries will be executed by the end of October this year.
“It is the contract of prestige that opens the Chinese demanding market for the ZZM-KOPEX GROUP” – Marek Mika, the vice president of KOPEX SA says. “ The success is the bigger as apart from very tough technical conditions we won the tender competing such international giants as “Joy”and DBT.”
The mechanized roof support ( in total 238 sections) equipped in hydraulic legs of 380 mm diameter each with Durachrom protective coating will be operated in one of mines in the Shanxi province as the part of the longwall mechanized cutting complex for which JOY will deliver a shearer and a conveyor. The length of this longwall is above 400 meters. The equipment for monitoring and control will be from “Marco” company from Munch.
It is worth adding that for above 15 years Poland realized no big delivers of machines and equipment for the Chinese coal mining sector.
There were attempts but the Polish producers were unable to keep the inventors’ high requirements which were finally and successfully reached by the ZZM-KOPEX GROUP that delivered the equipment for the Chinese mines after the years of break.
“The Chinese have such a rule that if they buy an equipment abroad it must be better than theirs” – Taduesz Soroka, the president of KOPEX SA says.
The road to China was paved by TAGOR that offered hydraulic legs with Durachrom coating whose anticorrosive durability is 5 times bigger that those offered by other Polish and foreign competitors. At tremendous needs of the Chinese market, the machines durability is of great importance: it eliminates further machines overhauls.
To the Middle Country 215 legs of 360 mm diameter were delivered whose purchaser was – the capital group - Yankaung. The delivery was preceding by the international tender in which competitors from Germany and Japan took part. Also during the last year the vibrating screens produced by “Wamag” from Wa³brzych were exported to China according to the special order submitted by Pingshuo and Coal Preparation Plant.
The Chinese market is very interesting business direction. The Chinese enterprises declare the great investment needs as the result of plans to keep the coal production on the same level or even to increase it after the closure of two 652 small mines in 2006 and another two 209 in 2007. These small and also dangerous mines produce about 40 % of the Chinese coal. At present, big coal producing companies, will try to fill the gap by installing new longwalls. In mines belonging to China Shenhua Energy Company yearly coal production from one longwall reaches to 12 million tonnes.
The export of Polish equipment to the Chinese coal mining sector was booming in the 80s. KOPEX sold to China above 50 longwall mechanized cutting complexes and coal processing machines, protection equipment and hoisting machinery. In the 60s this Polish company constructed coal processing plants in China but also in India, Vietnam, Argentina and Nigeria and after that built the electronically control coal processing plant “Quin Jia Ying.”
After years of lack in contracts with Chinese enterprises, contracts agreed in last months are a turn and a great comeback of the ZZM-KOPEX Group to the China.
