Bulk Material Handling Equipment: Firm Demand on Rising Coal Needs

December 11, 2010 8:37 am

Large scale expansion for mines belonging to public sector behemoth Coal India Limited allied with requirements of coal requirement of power and steel sector is well expected to put in firm demand for range of bulk material handling equipment. An OEM Update report.
 
Coal India Limited (CIL) has made large scale expansion plan for the eleventh plan to raise its output. The public sector coal producing behemoth has made a massive target of producing 520.5 million tones of coal for 2011–12. The large scale coal output targeted for production is for growing power sector requirement pegged at 70,000 MW. Bulk of the power requirements would be met by thermal power plants. Demand of coal would increasingly continue to be met from CIL’s open cast mines. This would be increasingly requiring deployment of wide range of bulk material handling equipment. From a modest level of 75 million tones, CIL ended 2007–08 with a production of 379 million tones. Most of the output came from open cast mining. CIL’s total production of coal during 2007–08 was 456.5 million tones.
 
According to senior CIL officials, as the present output requirement goes, the coal producing major would be requiring high capacity draglines to remove the coal, conveyors wherever feasible cutting down on wheel loaders and other transportation machinery. Conveyors would be required to connect the rail heads, port loading points and end users plants pertaining to primary and secondary steel producers. Not to mention power producers. Power sector would alone account for a good deal of demand of bulk material handling equipment. This would be power plants located close to the mine heads. Port loading points would be requiring bulk material handling requirements pertaining to ship to shore cranes coal loading and unloading cranes with grab attachments. Port bulk material handling equipment for coal would also involve ship loaders, continuous ship unloaders, grab type ship unloaders etc. The bulk coal material handling would also feature. Shore to ship handling facilities with mechanical slewing ship loaders featuring shuttle conveyors for movement of coal. There is large scale investment lined up by East Coast and West Coast major and private ports in India for handling coal that would be moving through the coastal route.
 
Handling of coal would also be requiring stackers, reclaimers, scraper/ reclaimers tube conveyors etc. For power plant end users of coal there would be growing requirement of coaling facilities, stockyard management facilities, systems based on delivery by rail or road and mechanical conveying in ash removal facilities. The requirements would be essentially based for coal feeding and ash removal facilities.
 
Product Offerings
Taking into account requirement of wide range of bulk coal material handling requirements equipment manufacturers have wide machinery variants for solutions required coupled with customized service package. Service package includes advice during solution development, feasibility studies for having bulk material handling requirement. Study support for capacity expansion of bulk material handling facilities and refurbishment of existing facilities.
 
Customer support is offered by German based bulk material handling manufacturer Tenova Takraf. The bulk material handling equipment major provides complete supply, erection support and commissioning of bulk material handling facilities, project management and quality control, preventive and regular maintenance refurbishment and modernization of existing plants. The company’s complete system for bulk material handling includes systems for transportation and storage, including requirements of sizing, blending and sampling, coaling and ash removal systems for power plants, handling systems for technological process, port handling systems, stackers, reclaimers, stacker/reclaimers and scraper reclaimers. It also manufacturers tube conveyors. As per the company, as compared to typical belt conveyors tube conveyors have got very small curve radii. This allows reduction of the number of transportation points. For open cast mining Takraf’s product range includes, complete open cast mining systems, bucket wheel excavators, bucket chain excavators, surface miners, mobile transfer conveyors and other equipment.
 
Wide range of bulk material handling equipment are also manufactured by Thyssenkrupp Industries India (TKII). Having its facilities at Pune, TKII another German bulk material handling equipment manufacturing major produces wide range of equipment. This includes, bucket wheel excavator, spreader, transport crawler, mobile , semi–mobile stationery crushing plants, reclaimers, stackers and stackers cum reclaimers. The company offers wide variants of conveying systems. This consists of specialized conveying systems, pipe conveyor systems, shiftable conveyor systems, down hill regenerative conveyors, ship loaders and unloaders, paddle feeders, pre–blending equipment for coal and other minerals.
 
According to the Company with its wide range off material handling equipment TKII has executed number of turnkey projects in India pertaining to coal handling. This includes,  2800 TPH Lignite handling Plant and Open Cast Machinery for Neyveli Lignite Corporation, 6mtpa Open pit coal mine for CIL’s at Pipravar through wide Industries Australia, 2,600 TPH Coal Handling Plants for National Thermal Power Corporation  3X 660 MW and 2X 500 MW Sipat 1 & 2 Power projects. TKII project also includes, 2,000 TPH coal handling system for 3×700 MW Tanjung Bin Power plants , Malaysia that included continuous ship unloaders.
 
Wide range of conveyors is also manufactured by Sandvik for coal handling. The company offers in plant conveyor systems with capacities from 100–7000 t/hr for handling bulk materials required for power plants, steel, cement and other industries. According to Sandvik, combining optimized ground level design with elevated modules, walk through structures and open or closed gantries, they always strike a right balance between space, capacity and cost. Sandvik’s in plant systems includes belt feeders, high–angle conveyors and enclosed conveyors.
 
It also manufactures special conveyor systems that include regenerative conveyors, belt feeders, high–angle conveyors, compact vertical lift conveyors that can overcome large differences in elevation. Product line in conveying systems for coal handling also includes, underground conveyors for special demands and extreme operating conditions of underground conveyor applications. The applications are essentially for under ground coal mines and metalliferous mines as well for all kinds of civil engineering applications. The company’s new products includes,  very flexible continuous haulage system for miners  in room and pillar operations, as well as a unique straight line continuous haulage system to support miners in the punch mining method.
 
Demand of rising coal requirement has made demand fundamentals quite firm for bulk material handling equipment. So are equipment manufacturers well placed with range of products at their disposal. However, for optimum equipment utilization there would be requirement of good deal of customer support from manufacturers. This has to be both in terms of equipment commissioning and servicing along with turnkey support.