ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik has received an order from Huaneng Yimin Coal and Electricity Co. Ltd. to deliver a new continuous coal crushing and haulage system for the phase 2 expansion of the Yimin open-pit coal mine in the People's Republic of China. The mine, close to the town of Yimin in Inner Mongolia, supplies coal to the local power station of Huaneng Power International Inc., one of China's biggest independent power utilities.

The total order is worth around 17.5 million euros and includes the engineering, supply and putting into service of a fully mobile in-pit crushing plant, a crawler-mounted beltwagon, a hopper and cable reel car, a shiftable bench conveyor, a relocatable conveyor bridge (semi-mobile beltwagon), and a transport crawler.

In temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, the new equipment will handle 3,000 metric tons of coal per hour at China's northernmost open-pit mine. The fully mobile in-pit crusher will be loaded with coal directly at the mine face by a rope shovel without the use of any heavy truck. Downstream from the crusher the coal will be transported continuously on belt conveyors, which can be extended vertically and horizontally using the belt-wagon to make the overall system highly flexible. Whenever the bench conveyor needs to be shifted, the transport crawler will be used to reposition the semi-mobile beltwagon and the conveyor drive station.

This new continuous open-pit mining system will be the first of its kind in China. The fully mobile in-pit crusher is a new developed equipment by ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik which will be the future for all open pit mining operations with large outputs worldwide. For hard and very hard material to be excavated, ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik can supply mobile in-pit crusher plants and all down-stream conveyors with a nominal capacity of up to 12,000 metric tons per hour.