Horne chairs Mongolian mine

1 May 2012 Electrical switching & drive systems & components

Horne Conveyance Safety, the Canadian subsidiary of the Horne group, has installed Levelok chairing and emergency braking systems on a cage earmarked for Ivanhoe Mines’ Oyu Tolgoi Shaft Number One in Mongolia. The cage will be used to lower personnel and equipment down the shaft, and to bring them back to surface.

Horne’s order was manufactured by the group’s Johannesburg factory in just six weeks, and shipped to North America for supervised installation on the Canadian-manufactured mine cage.

Oyu Tolgoi (or Turquoise Hill) is an open pit and underground project in Mongolia’s south Gobi desert. The site is being developed as a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines, Rio Tinto and the government of Mongolia. Commercial production is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2013.

The Horne Levelok system was chosen for Oyu Tolgoi because it provides controlled deceleration when operating on the steel shaft guides being used on this project. Additionally, Mongolian mining regulations require an emergency braking system that can arrest the fall of a mine cage carrying personnel under conditions of rope failure. Levelok satisfies both stipulations, and provides the further benefit of providing a chairing function to overcome the challenge of stretch in the winder rope when heavy materials are loaded.

The ability to provide safe, controlled deceleration on steel guides is unique to this product. Competing technologies can provide safe deceleration only when used with shaft guides made from timber. Technical development of the solution for the Oyu Tolgoi application was undertaken at Horne’s Johannesburg factory.

For more information contact André du Preez, Horne Group, +27 (0)11 974 1004, [email protected], www.horne-group.com

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