Winter Olympic demand pushes production

Construction work for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sotshi, Russia is boosting demand for aggregates from Russia's Karelian region

The wide Karelian forests in north-eastern Russia hide several high-quality aggregates deposits and until recently the roads markets have been the main customers for this material. But due to the quality, these valued aggregates are to play a significant role in the construction of new infrastructure 2000km away.

Karelia-based OOO "Karelprirodresurs" has previously mainly crushed, screened and transported the aggregates from the Leppasyrjä and Räikönkoski quarries for the road projects near St. Petersburg and Moscow. But the site benefits from nearby railway connection which has opened up the opportunity for materials to be used in the construction of facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sotshi, Russia. Several grades of aggregates are now being loaded onto trains that travel the huge distance of over 2000km from Karelia to the coast of the Black Sea to meet the Olympic construction demand. Analysts expect aggregates production in Karelia will increase up to 25million cubic metres per year and a large part of this total will travel south to the Sotshi area.

Factfile:
Operating sites: Leppasyrjä and Räikönkoski
Feed material: granite and diabase
Feed size: 0-600 mm
Combined capacity: 12,000tonnes per day Final aggregate fractions:
•5-10 mm
•10-20 mm
•5-20 mm
•20-40 mm
•25-60 mm
Processing plant: Lokotrack C125 primary jaw plant; Nordberg NW550GP wheel mounted secondary plant; Nordberg NW2060CVB wheel mounted screen; Nordberg NW7150C wheel mounted VSI plant; Vibrating chutes and conveyorsRecent investment by Karelprirodresurs means that the company is well positioned to meet the growing demand.

The Leppasyrjä plant, which started operating in August 2007, uses a combination of mobile, track and wheel mounted technologies supplied by 0 Metso Minerals. After blasting and some secondary breaking, the hard diabase is fed into a Lokotrack LT125 primary jaw crusher.

A fleet of 473 Volvo articulated dump trucks take the crushed materials to the secondary plant, about 1km away. A massive feeder distributes the gravel into the wheel mounted Nordberg NW550GP secondary plant which is built around the largest capacity Metso GP550 cone crusher.

A wheeled NW2060CVB screen plant separates the required product splits before the tertiary crushing stage. The four-decked inclined screen has a large screening area per deck to meet the capacity requirements.

Cubicity

The cubicity required for the new Olympic and road projects is produced using a wheeled Nordberg NW7150C tertiary plant which feeds into two wheeled screens - a NW2060CVB and a NW1845CVB.

Besides the crushers and screens, the Metso-designed system also includes vibrating chutes, product conveyors, a magnetic separator and the complete plant design.

The second Karelprirodresurs plant at Räikönkoski has a similar wheel-mounted process concept as Leppasyrjä. Instead of a mobile jaw, the primary crushing is being done with a stationary Nordberg jaw.

Quarry manager Sergey Popovich said, "At remote quarries like ours, we do require reliable machines with high availability. The Metso mobile units are simple and sturdy in design, which is a safe choice for us.

"Metso is able to listen to the customer and to understand his needs. For example with us, the fine-tuning of the plants and flexible spare and wear part shipments have been very crucial. But we also really welcome the additional support offered by the new Metso Minerals office recently opened in the nearby city of Petrozavodsk." According to Popovich, Karelprirodresurs's combined annual production volume of 3million tonnes can not satisfy the marketplace long term. "Therefore, we have started to plan a third crushing and screening plant, with a targeted start-up in 2009," he said.