China’s Qingdao Fambition Heavy Machinery, usually referred to just as Fambition, has delivered one of its 10 t class FL10T underground LHDs to the Jiama polymetallic mine of China Gold International Resources Corp in Tibet, China where it will work at very high alitude – around 4,500 m. Jiama is operated by China Gold International subsidiary, Tibet Huatailong Mining Development Co Ltd.
This LHD model has a Tier 3 Volvo TAD853VE engine supplying 235 kW at 2,200 rpm. It has a Bosch Rexroth hydraulic system and DANA R36000 transmission with D102 Kessler axles as well as a control system based on CANbus technology. The machine has an operating weight of 29 t with 4 m3 bucket capacity and breakout force of 188 kN.
The Jiama project is one of the largest copper-gold polymetallic mines in China. It is located within the Gangdise Copper Metallogeny Belt in Central Tibet, China and is approximately 60 km east of Lhasa City along the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. The large scale polymetallic deposit includes molybdenum, gold, silver, lead and zinc. Phase I of the Jiama mine commenced mining operations in the latter half of 2010 and reached its design capacity of 6,000 t/d of ore in early 2011. Phase II of the Jiama mine commenced mining operations in 2018 with 44,000 t/d of ore design capacity. Jiama produced 12.35 Mt of ore in 2019 at an average copper grade of 0.64% and an average gold content of 0.29 g/t. During 2019, average metal recovery rates began to improve and were higher compared to 2018, as the ratio of oxidised ore from the shallow part of the open pit continued to decrease.
Mining of Phase II commenced with two open pits and an extensive underground mine including the Jiaoyan Pit, South Pit and the underground mine. The open pits and underground expansion are being developed simultaneously. The open pits are separated from the underground operation by a crown pillar that is being maintained between the base of South Pit and the upper underground mine. Stope voids will be progressively backfilled beneath the base of the pit floor to reduce the potential for open pit and underground mine interaction. The two underground mining methods being used are cut & fill mining and sub-level caving. The area under the pit is not planned to be mined in the initial 10 years of operation.