Yevgeny Kosmin, dubbed a “Hero of Kuzbass,” and his mining brigade recently set a new world monthly coal production record at the Yalevsky mine of SUEK-Kuzbass. The brigade produced a total of 1.627 Mt of coal in August 2018. This is the best productivity result of underground production for a month in the coal industry in Russia and globally. All the coal was mined in lava [longwall] No 5004, which has 3.8 m of extractable coal thickness in the seam and 5.7 Mt of coal reserves, and is equipped with the most up-to-date world-class mining equipment.
In 2017 Yevgeny Kosmin brigade also set several All-Russian and world production records. In May and July the team produced 1.407 Mt and 1.567 Mt (the then world record). By the end of 2017, the production volume amounted to 5.309 Mt. In 2018, having started working on this lava [longwall] in April, the brigade has already produced 4.9 Mt, having updated its monthly record in August. Sergei Tsivilev, an acting governor of the Kemerovo region noted: “Records are always the result of the highest productivity of our miners. It is production achievements that ensure the lowest cost of production, which means that our coal is highly competitive. For us, this is vitally important now, at a time when the entire Kuzbass is on the verge of a powerful economic breakthrough.”
“SUEK invests a lot in equipment upgrades. And it is the best in the world,” says Yevgeny Kosmin. “We got a new generation continuous miner [in this case longwall shearer] Eickhoff SL900 that can produce up to 4,000 t of coal per hour. We moved to a new layer, where we began to prepare lavas with the bottomhole section length of 400 m, which are unique in Russia at the moment. The new mining technology makes it possible to produce more coal in fewer cycles. Everything is set up in the bottom and in the transport chain, so that the combine cuts almost non-stop. Of course, records are hard-won. But the team wants to constantly improve its own results.”
SUEK CEO Vladimir Rashevsky congratulated the team noting: “The fact that the most modern technology is operated by a well-coordinated high class team of professionals, allows us to achieve results that a few years ago seemed fantastic. Every new record is a new level of professional standard, to which the whole industry will look up to. This is also a new step in the development of the modern, technologically advanced Russian coal industry.”
The total volume of investments by SUEK in the development of the Yalevsky mine amounted to 10 billion roubles (over $145 million) for the past five years.
