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Leipzig — Tenova TAKRAF has obtained the turnkey contract for the supply of one SRs 2000 bucket wheel excavator for the coal mine extension operated by the Zhahanaoer branch of the CPE Mengdong Energy Group.

Tenova TAKRAF has been selected because of the long-lasting and sound operation of two bucket wheel excavators, a complete belt conveyor system and a spreader supplied by Tenova TAKRAF to Yuan Bao Shan some years ago; the company’s reputation as a reliable world-leading supplier of bucket wheel excavators; and the excellent technical solution they suggested for this particular project.

The Zhahanaoer coal field is located at the northwest end of Togliao city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous district. The open-pit mine is situated at the ridge of the southern part of the Daxing’an mountain range. In this region the tough climate is characterised by temperatures varying from +39°C down to -39°C.

The coal mine covers an area of 31.36km² and holds an estimated coal reserve of 827.93 million tons of lignite extracted at various depths from 85m to 356m. The recently ordered bucket wheel excavator is designed to excavate up to 6,600m³ of overburden per hour, which then will be transferred via loading unit to the bench conveyor. Thus, the design capacity makes the bucket wheel excavator the largest bucket wheel excavator of its kind in East Asia.

With a boom length of 44m the bucket wheel excavator will be able to mine a step height of 30m and a block width of 50m. The conveyor bridge connecting the bucket wheel excavator and the discharge module will have an approximate length of 120m.

The commissioning of the equipment is planned for October 2013.

This bucket wheel excavator is the 56th machine of this type supplied by Tenova TAKRAF, and all previous installations are operating reliably under the most adverse climatic conditions. The SRs 2000 supplied by Tenova TAKRAF some 30 years ago to mine hard coal in Ekibastus (Kazakhstan) are still in operation all-year-round at temperatures even exceeding the levels in the Zhahanaoer mine. Some of those excavators at Ekibastus are being refurbished, with the original bucket wheel drives being replaced with the all-new extra heavy-duty Tenova TAKRAF bucket wheel gearboxes to make them fit for future decades of operation.