Sirius potash mine

holly smoke said:

You would have thought 1 would of bought the other. They did say that there is a fault line under Whitby and the couldn’t go under in but that was 20 years ago but you would think technology would have been able to go around it by now

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I suppose there is still potential for something like that... there must be a way round it if sirius are tunneling through from the mine to teesside, though its maybe possible cause the conveyor tunnel isnt as deep.

Is the demand for potash that immense?

Current world consumption is running somewhere around 90 million tonnes - mostly for industrial purposes.

https://siriusminerals.com/our-project/woodsmith-mine/mining/

This fairytale gets better by the week !!
14, million tons per year from 4 CM's on a 3 shift system = 3196 tons per machine per shift 365 days per year
What have these boys been smoking? I operate a CM cutting 7.4 m wide and 6 m height on a perfect shift we can't get more than 14 meters advance !! that equates to 1150 tons per shift and we are cutting sylvanit which is a lot softer than the polyhalite. At 14 meters production has to be halted to allow the roof to be supported using anchors that takes time at least half a shift.
Next problem is the width and depth of cut "Continuous mining machines will excavate the ore by cutting a 12m wide, 5.5m high road," So 12 m wide cut with a CM leads to very weak roof stability !! that is without reckoning into the equation bed separation and other unknown geological problems. Another quote " The average thickness of the seam is 25m but, in places, we will take a mining cut of up to 40m" To cut 40 meters thickness involves a process known as Strossen or continually cutting the same stall 5 meters at a time until your final 40 meters is reached, To explain.why this is a problem you have to understand a little about the mining system. The system of mining is called pillar and stall, the stall is the material removed and the pillars are left to support the roof, the more material you take out the more support the roof and sides need to hold the weight from above. If the pillars are too small the weight crushes them and the whole lot comes down on your head. The deeper your stall the size of your pillars has to be increased to support the stress on the pillar walls.
All that and we haven't begone to work in the heat into the equation Once the mineshafts reach the polyhalite seam at 1520m below ground have they not worked out how hot that will be? at 1100 meters we are well into the 50C mark and men and machines don't like it .
Polyhalite is hard very hard so I personally have no idea how CM's are going to manage !!!!
Still wish them well but can't see them achieving half there targets

Glück auf.

Max

Xerion said:

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Polyhalite is hard very hard so I personally have no idea how CM's are going to manage !!!!

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I think boulby are having to blast Polyhalite as it just destroys the picks on the CM's

Xerion said:

https://siriusminerals.com/our-project/woodsmith-mine/mining/

This fairytale gets better by the week !!
14, million tons per year from 4 CM's on a 3 shift system = 3196 tons per machine per shift 365 days per year
What have these boys been smoking? I operate a CM cutting 7.4 m wide and 6 m height on a perfect shift we can't get more than 14 meters advance !! that equates to 1150 tons per shift and we are cutting sylvanit which is a lot softer than the polyhalite. At 14 meters production has to be halted to allow the roof to be supported using anchors that takes time at least half a shift.
Next problem is the width and depth of cut "Continuous mining machines will excavate the ore by cutting a 12m wide, 5.5m high road," So 12 m wide cut with a CM leads to very weak roof stability !! that is without reckoning into the equation bed separation and other unknown geological problems. Another quote " The average thickness of the seam is 25m but, in places, we will take a mining cut of up to 40m" To cut 40 meters thickness involves a process known as Strossen or continually cutting the same stall 5 meters at a time until your final 40 meters is reached, To explain.why this is a problem you have to understand a little about the mining system. The system of mining is called pillar and stall, the stall is the material removed and the pillars are left to support the roof, the more material you take out the more support the roof and sides need to hold the weight from above. If the pillars are too small the weight crushes them and the whole lot comes down on your head. The deeper your stall the size of your pillars has to be increased to support the stress on the pillar walls.
All that and we haven't begone to work in the heat into the equation Once the mineshafts reach the polyhalite seam at 1520m below ground have they not worked out how hot that will be? at 1100 meters we are well into the 50C mark and men and machines don't like it .
Polyhalite is hard very hard so I personally have no idea how CM's are going to manage !!!!
Still wish them well but can't see them achieving half there targets

Glück auf.

Max

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Max

Can they not run longwall mining systems for this stuff or is it too hard?

TheTallGuy said:

The proposed rate of extraction doesn't lend itself to using rail - for instance MWA wagons carry ~77t payload & a typical train would be 30 wagons long giving somewhere around 2300t per train, the proposed maximum extraction is:
20 million tonnes a year
~54,000 t day
~2,283t/hour

So that would be 1 train per hour 24 hours a day or more likely 1.5 per hour for 16 hours a day to give 8 hours for maintenance. That amount of bashing would require an almost complete rebuild of the existing lines & signaling to cope on top of the new build section.

At both ends of the rail line you need a system to allow you to hold & handle the material outside of operating hours. Whereas the conveyor system can run 24/7 with maintenance periods timed to suit reduced or paused extraction. Stockpiling would only need occur at the processing plant in the form of a surge bin. Sirius will have total control of the transport to the plant & wouldn't be at the mercy of the rail system or external factors such as weather. The tunnel is also going to be used to provide the power feed & data links, which would otherwise have to be taken overland & probably trenched in.

In reality I am dubious as to whether the mine will fulfill anywhere near the advertised potential, but will be more than happy to be wrong on that score!

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Someone must have their sums wrong, they aren't gonna mine over 2000 tonnes an hour, not in this material.

ollie989898 said:

Is that even possible?

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35 odd years ago when coal was still king (ish) there was a huge proposal to build Europe’s biggest coal mine pit head at Hawkhurst Moor near Coventry. It would have been right next door to where Massey Ferguson tractors were built at Banner Lane and would have mined millions of tonnes of The Warwickshire Thick, one of the richest seams of highest quality coal ever found.

The belts were planned to extend right down under south Warwickshire, over twenty miles and I’m reasonably sure over 2000t per day was the target.

It was all shelved and The Thick still lies there, a huge untapped resource that someday will be needed.

Forgot to say, Warwickshire had one of Europe’s most productive coal mines at Daw Mill. At one time they held the record for output at 3.12 million tonnes in a year.

Hawkhurst Moor was to be much more productive, so it is possible to move huge amounts of stuff on belts.

Sorry, off topic a bit!

Cab-over Pete said:

35 odd years ago when coal was still king (ish) there was a huge proposal to build Europe’s biggest coal mine pit head at Hawkhurst Moor near Coventry. It would have been right next door to where Massey Ferguson tractors were built at Banner Lane and would have mined millions of tonnes of The Warwickshire Thick, one of the richest seams of highest quality coal ever found.

The belts were planned to extend right down under south Warwickshire, over twenty miles and I’m reasonably sure over 2000t per day was the target.

It was all shelved and The Thick still lies there, a huge untapped resource that someday will be needed.

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Sorry, just re-read this post and made a mistake. The output from Hawkhurst Moor was to be 12000t per day, not 2000t.

ollie989898 said:

Max

Can they not run longwall mining systems for this stuff or is it too hard?

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Hi, Ollie if I am correct potash was only mined once in France using the Longwall method!
Here is a short video from Cat advertising their LTCC equipment but it shows how a long wall operates and the main reason Potash can't be longwalled


In a longwall system, you cut the mineral and Cave in behind the face!
This has an effect on the strata above, fracturing it as the gob caves in. Normally if it is done in a safe and controlled way there are little or no effects at the surface.
This doesn't mean that the underlying strata isn't-effected .
Potash sits in a layer of rock salt and your biggest enemy is water as it dissolves the rock salt, if by caving behind the cut you distort or break the layers of strata above you allow water into the mine and that as they say is end of story.
Polyhalite is extremely hard on a par with anhydrite but it can be cut by mechanical methods CMs,TSM's and shearers but you need water to cool the picks as they are cutting Today we have picks that can cope with this material and even harder stuff but they need large amounts of water to cool and as above that is a big no-no in a salt mine . Without cooling picks just melt !!! I have personally experienced hitting anhydrite in a washout, not reacting quickly enough destroyed a full set of picks in less than 30 seconds.

YELROM said:

I think boulby are having to blast Polyhalite as it just destroys the picks on the CM's

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Boring and firing and mucking out is a very time-consuming job, it takes 3 shifts for the production cycle to come full circle
First, shift, load out up to 1800 tons then the second shift make the roof and sides safe by scraping any loose material off and anchor the roof. Third shift bore your shot holes depending on the size of stall this can be anything up to 120 holes 7 meters long, then charge the shot holes with explosives (can over 500 kg of powder) when we leave the workplace for shift change BOOM !!
Most of our production comes from the boring and firing method .
Getting back on subject I hope you can see from the above why the figures quoted are not realistic that is without starting off on their winding capacity !!
You can all do some maths on the back of a fag packet and work out how many 40 ton skips it will take a year to achieve 14 million tons let alone 20 million
The belt idea is a good move to transport the material by far the fastest and most economical way to transport mineral , belts today can move huge amounts of stuff especially the big high-speed cable belts but not quite sure why they are putting them so deep in the ground.

Cab-over Pete said:

Forgot to say, Warwickshire had one of Europe’s most productive coal mines at Daw Mill. At one time they held the record for output at 3.12 million tonnes in a year.

Hawkhurst Moor was to be much more productive, so it is possible to move huge amounts of stuff on belts.

Sorry, off topic a bit!

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Pete

Super pit
Sadly sabotaged by UK Coal
So off to do my snappin night shift tonight

Glück auf

Max

Sirius tunnelling machines unveiled.....

Update on Sirius - shares have fallen, big time!
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/tempted-sirius-minerals-share-price-080622994.html?guccounter=1

A friend has put a lot of money into Sirius and told me that I would make a fortune if I did the same. I looked into it and it was obvious it was a sort of ponzi scheme and had no chance of success. They drilled under the channel and that has never made any money and it had 2 governments propping it up. Sirius shares were 25p 2 months ago, today they are 8p. I bet the bosses make plenty and the suckers will lose.

I’ve bought more today...........

principal skinner said:

I’ve bought more today...........

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i think i bought mine at 10p
as with all shares, i bought only enough i could afford to lose.

Will there be many more dilutions before the 1st ton comes out ?

I blame @Xerion!

Going bust?