Safety is the foundation of activities
16.12.2009
Ensuring safe working conditions for employees has always been among the priorities of «Zarechnaya» mine. Vitaly Kharitonov, director general of «Zarechnaya» coal mining company, said: «Safety is the foundation of our activity. It is a stand both of the top management and the owners of our units. We don’t need coal at any price, that is why we are going to apply all modern developments which are at hand in coal mining industry to ensure safety of coal production in our mines».
These approaches to organizational management are demonstrated by «Zarechnaya» mine, the leading enterprise of the company, and one of the most successfully developing mines in Kuzbass and all Russia. Production modernization, introducing modern equipment and technology allow the mine to gradually increase the rates of preparatory and heading works, improve safety and reliability of the company operation.
In 1998, after restructuring, the mine made a transition from hydromining to a «dry» technology. Since that time more than 10 bln. roubles were invested in the development of the enterprise, the production of coal increased tenfold. This year the production at «Zarechnaya|» will go beyond 5 bln. tons. In October, 2009 the load on the breakage face rose up to 13, 84 thousand tons of coal a day, one employee output was equal to 247 tons a month. Numerous records in heading and excavation for the last several years make «Zarechnaya» one of the best coal mining companies in the top ten list of the mining companies of the country.
The mine is equipped with high productivity machines, including powered roof supports МКЮ 2Ш26/53, М-138 made by Yurginsky Machine-building plant, KM-800 by Uzlovsky Machine-building plant, armored face conveyors СПЦ-271and «Anzhera-30» made by Yurginsky and Anzhero-Sudjensk machine building plants, by Joy, Great Britain, DBT Bucyrus, Germany-Great Britain, longwall shearers МВ-12, Czech Republic, DBT Bucyrus, Germany-Great Britain.
As for the first workings, compressed-air drills to bore blast holes for roof bolting were adopted, which made it possible to decrease the amount of manual labor and increase the working efficiency of the mine shaft sinkers. Sinking works are carried out using heading machines made in Russia, Ukraine and Great Britain: КПЮ-50, П-110, КСП-32, «Dosco». Powerful belt conveyors with belt width equal to 1200 mm are installed in the slant borehole and the coal is transported only by conveyors.
«Zarechnaya» became the first mine in Kuzbass to refuse from haulage and introduced monorail transportation. At present the total length of the monorail is about 30 km. Introduction of modern transportation equipment made it possible to decrease the amount of manual labour at hauling, decrease on-the-job injury rate caused by overloads, drawbar hitches of the rolling stock, switching while monkey heading, rope breakdown, vehicle derailment, and to solve a pressing problem of delivery of people to the site and back to the surface. The transportation of people by the monorail and following the schedule of deliveries excluded the necessity for the miners to walk and be transported by vehicles inappropriate for such purposes. The use of diesel locomotion in the boxes shortened the period of assembly and disassembly operation and decreased the labor input. Traffic control at the mine is exercised using optical fiber communication, which allows to control the mobility and efficiency of the diesel locomotive fleet. «Zarechnaya» is a super categorical mine, that is why a wide range of safety measures is carried out here. Since 2005, over 700 mln. roubles were invested for these purposes.
To ensure safety of underground mining, a complex seam degassing is undertaken, a system of gas control is in effect, face combined ventilation system with isolate methane-air mixture withdrawal by end-on gas-suction filters is used. Degassing operations include surface degassing, or degassing of the worked-out area using holes bored in the cupola, and seam degassing, or preliminary degassing. Cupola degassing has been carried out at «Zarechnaya» since 2002, seam degassing — since 2008. Since that 134411meters of holes have been bored. General costs of degassing operations made 54 mln. roubles, 10 mln. roubles of them were spent on bore sealing. This year over 49527 meters of holes have been bored, 8 km of degassing columns have been mounted. During the preliminary degassing metane withdrawal rate made 6,5 m3/min, during the seam degassing the withdrawal rate decreased to 2,1 m3/min.
Preliminary seam degassing has considerably improved the safety of mining and decreased the risk of gas accumulation in the seam and gas content in the mine. «Zarechnaya» is equipped with «Mikon-1P» system, which is modern equipment controlling the content of noxious gases in the mine atmosphere and air rate in the spent mine; it is a computer aided control of ventilators operation and has a dispatch control. The belt conveyors of the mine are also equipped with the sensors for detecting seats of fire.
The warning and searching system «Radius-2» introduced this year is designed to ensure more safety. This system can warn any mining worker in emergency and helps locate him/her. By the end of the year additional subsystem «Radiuscan» is planned to be put into operation. It will supervise personnel and allow to locate a worker by control points and find him/her easily in case of emergency.
Improvement of ventilators of the main ventilation system ВГП-2ВЦ-25 was made in connection with the transition of the mine to deep level extraction («Nadbaikalimsky» and «Baikalimsky» coal beds) to provide production and development faces with a rated amount of air. The efficiency of the ventilation system was increased by 25% this way, and about 1500 m3 of air were delivered to the mine. To decrease the air drag, the mine opening was widened to 550 m. New 110/ 6,3/ 6,6 kW substation «Zarechnaya-novaya» was put into operation. The plans for the next year include improvement of ВГП-3ВЦ-25 ventilation system.
The issues of the region’s ecological safety are given special attention to by the management of the company. Great efforts were made to make to mine’s technological complex ecologically safe. The boiler plant has been enlarged and the third boiler of КЕ 10/14 type with the efficiency of combustion gas treating equal to 90-95% has been installed at the central site. Air heating plant has been installed in the air pit. The concentrating mill with water and slime closed circuit where all the extracted coal is processed also improves environmental conditions.
To improve industrial safety, the supervisory service does monthly task checks. But the main job of safety control is done by the Federal Service of Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Control, and the mine collaborates with its experts. Over 111 surveys of industrial safety conditions at «Zarechnaya» within 9 months were carried out by the inspectors of Southern Siberia Department of the Russian Engineering Supervision Service. Total inspection in the company is carried out annually. All the comments are reviewed and infringements are eliminated promptly and to the full. Such an extensive range of safety measures allows to maintain the necessary level of industrial safety in the company. For the last 10 years not a single accident of the 1st and the 2nd category has taken place at «Zarechnaya». It is a result of common efforts aimed at ensuring labour safety and protecting health and life of the miners of Kuzbass.
