Copper Mines in Turkey seismically secured by DSI products
In Turkey, mining activities have been known from the early days of human history. Today, mining continues to be an economically important industry sector for the country. At present, Turkey is mainly exploiting gold, lead, zinc, chromate, coal, and iron. But there are also significant deposits of copper and pyrite concentrate that are being mined (pyrite concentrate is a byproduct of copper mining and contains a high proportion of sulfur). One of the major producers for these two products is the Eti Bakir A.S. mining group., which is part of Cengiz Holding. Eti Bakir mines copper in two similar mining regions. The Küre Mine of Eti Bakir is located in the northwestern part of Turkey, near the city of Kastamonu, close to the Black Sea. The Murgul Mine is operated in the far northeast of Turkey, close to the town Murgul in the province of the city of Artvin. The Küre Mine includes three open-pit mines as well as one underground mine. Here, more than 250 employees mine copper exceeding 1 million t run off mine and pyrite concentrate exceeding 90,000t per year. The Kastamonu region is geographically located in one of the most seismically active regions of the world – due to the North-Anatolian fault stretching below the north of Turkey and the Marmara Sea as far as Greece. Hence it was mandatory for the mining company to find a flexible bolt system suitable to secure underground working galleries in seismically active mining regions DSI recommended the OMEGA-BOLT® Anchor System to the mining group. After several test installations and comprehensive load tests, OMEGA-BOLT® Anchors quickly convinced the customer of their viability to solve the existing problem. The characteristic flexibility of the OMEGA-BOLT® to continually conform to changing conditions of the installation ground as well as its ability to link multiple weak strata layers reliably secures the seismically active rock. DSI currently supplies OMEGA-BOLT® Expandable Friction Bolts to the Küre mines which are continuously installed in the shaft and galleries during tunnel driving. Moreover, DSI provides pumps and additional equipment for the installation of OMEGA-BOLT® Anchors in the mines. Eti Bakir also operates the Artvin Murgul Mines in the far northeast of Turkey, where they annually remove more than 2.7 million t of runoff copper and 75,000t of pyrite concentrate. For these mines, DSI supplies an extensive range of mining products for the efficient safety of the galleries such as friction bolts, OMEGA-BOLT® Anchors and cable bolts together with pumps and cable bolt tensioners.