SHAFT SINKING
“In one shaft, we are about two months ahead
of plan and, on the other one, about three months
ahead,” he said.
“Bottom line: we are pretty confident of
completing this project ahead of time.”
Martin-Devid Herrenknecht, reviewing the
project, added: “Slavkaliy’s bold decision in favour
of the SBR’s premier in Europe and Redpath
Deilmann’s leading shaft sinking expertise were
the ideal environment for the machines to prove
their worth and to develop new perspectives of
this technology.”
Where next for the SBR?
The short answer is the Woodsmith mine, in the
UK, owned by Anglo American, where two thirdgeneration
SBRs will help sink the production
shaft to a depth of 1,594 m and the service shaft
to 1,565 m depth, both with 6.75 m diameters.
The current schedule would see these SBRs
start sinking activities at Woodsmith next year.
Outside of this project, Greinacher said the SBR
project in Belarus had attracted lots of attention
from global mining and engineering companies.
Earlier this year, the company had arranged an
international visit for parties interested in the SBR
and the project, only for the event to be scuppered
by COVID-19.
One Poland-based coal miner was able to visit
the project before the pandemic set in and
Redpath Deilmann is currently discussing a
The SBC features an 8-10 m
diameter special shaped
cutting head
potential contract with the
firm using the SBR to sink
two shafts in the east of the
country, according to
Greinacher.
“There are perhaps two or
three other projects in
various stages of
discussion,” he said.
With Redpath Deilmann
holding onto these machines
following completion of the
work in Belarus and having
already successfully carried
out a sinking project by
mechanised means, it has an
advantage over other
contractors when bidding for
future contracts in terms of
both capital expenditure and
experience, according to
Greinacher.
“Worldwide, though, there
is way more demand in
mechanised hard-rock shaft
sinking than in soft rock,” he
said.
Therefore, in 2018, in cooperation with
Herrenknecht, the company started developing a
concept for a hard-rock (around 260 MPa)
mechanised sinking machine.
This concept, the Shaft Boring Cutterhead
(SBC), is billed as being able to cut >120 MPa rock
down to 1,000 m depths with shaft diameters of 8-
9 m.
Greinacher said the experience both companies
have with the SBRs has been leveraged for the
design and engineering of the SBC.
Built with a cutterhead like a tunnel boring
machine (TBM), it can deliver an advance rate of 6
m/d, according to Herrenknecht.
Greinacher expanded on some of the other
features.
“It is not that different from the SBR, except in
the all-important cutting area, which is like a TBM
with 8-10 m diameter special shaped cutting head.
“The mucking system – we looked at five or six
mucking systems during design – will be a
pneumatic system, again like the SBR.”
The excavated chips will be sucked at the face
to a cyclone some 30 m up, and then discharged
into the buckets.
With basic engineering now complete,
Greinacher said both companies are ready to start
jointly marketing and promoting the SBC to the
industry.
“The next step is to set up a test facility in
Schwanau on the Herrenknecht property,” he said.
ANY MINERAL.
ANY GEOLOGY.
ANYWHERE.
COMPANY MARKS A NEW MILESTONE
WITH ANOTHER SHAFT SINKING
RECORD IN BELARUS
For more than 130 years we have safely and successfully sunk
more than 500 shafts with a depth of over 230,000 m.
We are a member of The Redpath Group, operating on all five
continents and belonging to the world market leaders in the
field of mine contracting and construction.
We provide our customers with a complete range of services
from design and engineering to construction, maintenance,
reconstruction and rehabilitation.
Contact us with your shaft-related inquiries.
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Shaft station level 700 m,
Slavkaliy mine Nezhinsky, Belarus
REDPATH DEILMANN GmbH
Haustenbecke 1, 44319 Dortmund, Germany
Tel.: +49 231 2891 395/396
www.redpathdeilmann.com