TURKISH DELIGHT

Atlas Copco Wagner line-up: Scooptrams and Mine Trucks at the Cayeli mine.

Production at the site, located 100 km from the Turkey-Georgia border, started in 1994 and 491,000 tonnes were produced in the following year. Cayeli Bakir Isletmeleri A.S., a consortium of Inmet Mining, Eti Holding and Gamma Construction, is responsible for managing the mine.

The known mineralisation at Cayeli has a total strike length of 920 m, a vertical extent of 600 m, and is open in both directions. In terms of total tonnage and grade, the orebody has one of the world's highest copper contents for its size, which varies between a few metres to more than 100 m.

Good performance

The mine is planned for transverse open stoping, with 20m between sublevel drifts, and stopes can be from 10m to 80m long, containing ore of 30-40 MPa. This is an easy match for the Atlas Copco Boomer 282 rigs that form the backbone of the rig fleet used for development, in combination with the Atlas Copco loaders.

Two rigs are constantly at work driving the 7m wide, 5m high production drifts. The standard round can be up to 80 x 4m holes, using 48mm button bits, and up to five 2.4m Swellex rock bolts are set for each metre advance.

Happy with the Atlas Copco Boomer 282: Planning engineer Hasan Giray with rig operator Aziz Alay.

Rig operator Aziz Alay takes it all in his stride and fully agrees with Deputy General Manager Dr Sabri Altinoluk, who says: "We are more than happy with the performance of the rigs."
Atlas Copco Wagner ST-6C and ST-8B Scooptrams, three of each, load the rock and are equipped with ejector buckets which discharge horizontally into the 33-tonne capacity Minetrucks - three Wagner MT-433 and two MT-436B units.

The Scooptrams are radio remote controlled, ensuring that drivers never have to enter the stopes. This undoubtedly contributes to Cayeli's enviable safety record, with its 387 employees, it has scored 442 days without any lost time due to personal injury accidents.

Everyone at the mine is proud of this record, which begins with the careful screening of employees and followed by training in Germany or Canada.

General Manager John Timmons: "The Cayeli mine is a world-class producer."

General Manager John Timmons, whose long career includes some of the most well known mining locations, says: "Not only is Cayeli a world-class deposit, it's also a world-class producer!"

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Key performers at
three new dams

Drilling and grouting equipment from Atlas Copco is playing a key role on three important dam projects which form part of hydropower developments along the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey.

The dams are Berke on the River Ceyhan, at the eastern end of the coastline, Akköprü on the Dalaman river, towards the western end, and Çine on the river of the same name.
The equipment has been supplied to all three sites by the Istanbul-based company DBC Makina, which covers the whole country.

A key unit at the projects is the Diamec 262 all-hydraulic core drill for surface and underground drilling, which can also be equipped for top-hammer and Down-The-Hole drilling.

In action at the Çine dam: The single Unigrout machine at the site is equipped with the new Pumpac high capacity grout pump.

Just perfect

At the Berke site, where the dam will be 201m high and the sides of the river gorge rise to around 500m, total drilling will amount to almost one million metres. The work is being carried out by 14 Diamec 262 rigs and 40 locally made units, with a design based on the Atlas Copco concept. Drilling is scheduled for completion in June this year.

Other equipment at the site includes two CEMIX units, an electric-powered Mustang A32 rig with COP 64 hammer, two ROC crawler rigs and a Boomer 282 drilling rig.

Chief drilling engineer Mr I. Tanner Sökeli says: "The Diamec 262 is a perfect machine which has performed beyond expectations. There was no trouble even when relatively untrained personnel were operating it."

Quality job

At the Akköprü dam there are five Diamec 262 rigs in action - three crawler-mounted and two skid-mounted - and four Unigrout grouting units, two of them equipped with Pumpac units to pump grout with a high sand content over long distances.

The first equipment at the site was a skid-mounted, electric-powered Diamec 262 and one Unigrout unit, which were employed in drilling and grouting the diversion tunnels.

This first Unigrout has reportedly been running 24 hours a day for four months. Project Manager Ilker Akar, of the main contractor NTF, says : "A very good quality job was carried out on the diversion tunnels and the rig and grouting equipment performed better than expected. DSI, the owner-controller of the project, was also very impressed."

Around 20 million m3 of limestone for rockfill is being quarried some 5km from the dam site, using an Atlas Copco ROC F7 rig equipped with the Coprod system and two ROC 742HC units.

Drilling grout holes in the main dam body: There are five Diamec 262 units at the Akköprü site.

A national first

The construction method for the Çine dam, which will provide drinking water and irrigation as well as power generation, is RCC (Roller Compacted Concrete), and it is the first time this has been used in Turkey.

The method involves a mix of cement, ash and aggregate, with no water. First, a series of layers are compacted using a rotating cylinder. Then the dam is built up in 30cm layers of RCC, each followed by a 4cm layer of normal concrete.

Five Diamec 262 drills have been supplied to the site - two crawler-mounted and diesel powered, and three skid-mounted electric units - which are used for both coring and in-the-hole drilling. One of the Unigrout units at the site is equipped with the new Pumpac high capacity grout pump.

Mahmut Ulusoy, project manager for the drilling and grouting work, says: "The Diamec machines are excellent and extremely fast, achieving 90 metres per day drilling 20-25 metre holes for the grout curtain of the coffer dam.

"All in all we think this equipment is playing an invaluable role in the success of the project."

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