Business news

LYUBAN, 25 July (BelTA) – The Nezhinsky mining and processing factory will be commissioned in 2022, BelTA learned from Igor Poryadin, chief specialist for permanent workings at IOOO Slavkaliy, the company in charge of implementing the project.

The construction of the Nezhinsky mining and processing factory will be finished in 2020. The necessary infrastructure needs to be built over the course of about two years in order to commission the factory. There are plans to build an administrative wing with auxiliary premises and a processing plant. A cogeneration plant with the output capacity of 60MW will be built on the premises to power the facility. A gas pipeline will have to be built to connect the site with the Soligorsk gas distribution station. It will allow supplying natural gas to about 30 populated localities in Lyuban District later on.

Apart from that, an access railroad and halls of residence will be built. The human resources policy has already been developed. The future mining and processing factory will need about 2,000 specialists with skills in mining, technology, and electric technology.

Work is now in progress at the Nezhinsky mining and processing factory’s construction site to drill boreholes and install conductors 30m below the surface in order to freeze the ground. Preparatory work has already been done. Infilling, grading and levelling operations are now over. The concrete foundation has been built and has gained the designed strength over the course of one month. All the 86 boreholes will be drilled by the Belarusian company Delta.

Once the conductors for the freezing boreholes are installed, in October 2017 specialists of the German company Deilmann-Haniel will start installing the freezing equipment and connecting it to the freezing plant. A cooling agent will circulate 156m below the surface for eight months to lower the soil temperature to 35C below zero. Such ice wall structures are used at the world’s largest mines to fully prevent water from reaching future production shafts.

“The project is unique because we don’t use the traditional explosive method for drilling the future shafts,” said Igor Poryadin. “The shaft will be drilled all the way to 698m below the surface using mechanical means.”

BelTA reported earlier that the groundbreaking ceremony for building the Nezhinsky mining and processing factory using the Starobinskoye potash salt deposit in Lyuban District, Minsk Oblast took place in September 2015. The Nezhinsky factory will become the country’s second enterprise to extract potassium ore and produce potash fertilizers with the output capacity of up to 2 million tonnes of potassium 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.