Magatar Technology

Magatar's LCM Technology

In principal, the LCM Methodology entails that:

	a continuous miner is utilized, but the traditional shuttle car/battery haulage system is replaced with a modern and simple continuous haulage system that transfers coal to the section conveyor belt on a continuous basis (without the need to disengage the cutting system)
	all man-handling and logistic tasks have been mechanized
	in addition the cutting sequences have been modified so that:

*	the majority of the mining activities can take place in the retreat mode instead of the advance mode; this ensures that entries can be created with a very high safety factor. Production takes place in retreat and continuously moves away from the danger area, thus offers a safer mining encvironment than traditional methods;
*	roof-bolters and rib-bolters form an integral part of the continuous mining machine, allowing mining and roof- or rib-bolting to take place simultaneous to the cutting process and thus allowing high utilization ratios to be realized.

The blue band on the following graph shows the monthly tonnages achievable with the Magatar LCM methodology.

The green band on the graph shows the average monthly tonnages of SA bord and pillar mines for various seam heights.

The two SA mines using continuous haulages and modified B&P cutting sequences are midway between B&P and Magatar monthly tonnages.

A Chinese mine using continuous haulages and its own mining method is achieving slightly higher tonnages than Magatar.

The challenge is the red line showing the cutting capability of the continuous miner in the ideal world..