Herrenknecht has started making shaft boring roadheaders (SBR), which are required for building the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory in Belarus, Belarus news agency BelTA learned from Anna Bunkova, press secretary of IOOO Slavkaliy, the company in charge of building the factory.

The German company Herrenknecht is contributing to the project to build the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory as part of the contract signed with Slavkaliy’s contractor Deilmann-Haniel. Using the shaft boring roadheaders (SBR) to make shafts will be a unique approach for Europe.

Such machines have been used only once in Canada at the Jansen potash mine. Core components of the SBR machines are being manufactured now. Certain parts are ready for assembly. Herrenknecht Company will start assembling integral parts in March 2018.

BelTA reported earlier that in September 2015 Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and the businessman Mikhail Gutseriyev placed a time capsule at the construction site to mark the beginning of the project to build the Nezhinsky potash mining and processing factory using the Starobinskoye potash salts deposit. It will be the second company in Belarus after giant Belaruskali to mine potash ore and make potash fertilisers with the output capacity of up to 2 million tonnes of potassium chloride per annum. As part of the investment project one mining facility will be built in addition to a processing plant, a gas turbine power plant the enterprise will need, railway infrastructure, access roads, housing infrastructure, and other kinds. The construction of the Nezhinsky mining and processing factory began in 2016. IOOO Slavkaliy is in charge of implementing the project.