The biggest longwall was launched in the Knurów-Szczygłowice mine, Knurów Section, in seam 504. The longwall comprises nearly 1.7 million tons of high quality coking coal. The longwall has a strike of about 1,800 meters and is over 200 meters long. The average longwall thickness (height) is 3 meters.
Longwalls with a strike exceeding 1.5 kilometers in Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa are a rarity. Now we will have more and more such giant longwalls, which, for us, is a guarantee of stable production and significant improvement of efficiency and performance - says Tomasz Śledź, JSW Vice-President for Technical Matters.
The next longwalls were launched in the Szczygłowice and Zofiówka Sections and in the Budryk mine. In the Szczygłowice Section, the expected production from longwall no. 21 until the end of February 2020 will reach nearly 700 thousand tons of coking coal. The Zofiówka Section launched longwall E6, where the coking coal resources are estimated at more than 400 thousand tons. The Budryk mine, in turn, launched production from longwall B-12 with resources estimated at 800 thousand tons.
Currently, JSW mines operate 25 longwalls. From the beginning of the year, the production from the Company’s mines has been constantly increasing. In the first quarter, 3.48 million tons and in the second quarter 3.53 million tons were mined, which is consistent with the plan adopted by the Company. The execution of the heading works is more than 2 km higher than in the corresponding period of 2018.
