Commissioning of coarse crushing system was successfully completed by Sabwe Mining SARL at Lonshi Copper Mine project on December 28, marking another milestone, with over 160 witnesses including Sabwe management, representatives of local employees and expats, leaders from partners. As a thorough and systematic test of the crushing equipment and process flow, this successful commissioning of system brought strong confidence and vitality to the team in the completion and operation of sulfuric acid plant and smelting plant, and laid a solid foundation for the future commencement of production.
Upon the announcement by Sabwe General Manager, control switches were orderly turned on, followed by ore feeding from trucks to the ore bin. After that, ore was successively fed to heavy apron feeder, jaw crusher and 1# belt conveyor, relevant devices were switched on with feedback promptly done by all involved personnel. Applause and cheers burst out when crushed ores carried by 1# belt conveyor arrived the top discharging point and fell off like waterfalls, thereby the hot commissioning of Lonshi coarse crushing system was successfully completed.
The construction of the coarse crushing system was commenced on May 16, 2022, with concrete pouring of floor and pad for coarse crushing system completed later in June, concrete pouring of storage site floor in July, installation of heavy apron feeder and jaw crusher in August, installation of 1# conveyor truss and main structure construction for storage site in October, and main structure construction for coarse crushing system in November. With all construction and installation works done, individual trial run of storage site, coarse crushing module and 1# belt conveyor was successfully done, laid a solid foundation for the final successful hot commissioning.
Another accomplishment was achieved in December following the successful commissioning of coarse crushing system. The monthly underground development overfulfilled the monthly target and hit a record-high by exceeding 1000m.
UG development at Lonshi project was commenced in June 2022, with totally 3200m+ completed as of December. And monthly development rate was progressively increased from 30m, 100m, up to 600m, 800m, 900m before finally exceeding 1000m, marking a new stage.
