Bucyrus, a leading mining equipment manufacturer, has won a contract to deliver a complete automated plow longwall to Polish mine operator Lubelski Węgiel Bogdanka for its Bogdanka mine in Puchaczów, 29 km from Lublin in eastern Poland.  It is the first complete plow longwall system sold into Poland. The longwall will initially start to operate on a 250 m working panel and will finally operate on a 305-m working panel of seam 385, which has a thickness of between 1.4 and 1.8 m. A Gleithobel^® GH1600 plow will be installed, which has 2 x 800 kW of installed power and has been specifically developed for high productivity in very hard coal.

A total of 173 roof supports – with a support range of 950 – 2,000 mm – will be supplied, each equipped with its own PMC^®-R roof support control. Other members of the Bucyrus Programmable Mining Control family will also be used for automation and visualisation: The PMC-D (drive control) and PMC-V (visualisation) for the 2 P45-UEL overload-protected plow drives and the 2 P45-CST (controlled start transmission) face conveyor drives.

The longwall will be equipped with a PF4/1032 face conveyor, a PF4/1132 entry conveyor, a SK 1111 crusher and an S147600 belt tail-piece. Power supply and pump station will also be supplied.

With installed power totalling 3.3 kV – 2 x 210/630 kW for the plow and 2 x 800 kW for the armoured face conveyor – the longwall system will be delivered to the customer at the end of the 2009. The complete system was ordered as Bucyrus was able to ensure a daily production rate of 10,000 t.

Bogdanka is one of Poland’s major mine operators, producing 7.86 Mt of raw coal in 2008. The company has over 3,650 employees.