Cerrejon mine; among the largest open-pit coal mines in the world

Cerrejón is a coal mine located in the Guajira department in the north of Colombia. It is the largest mining operation in Colombia and among the largest open-pit coal mines in the world. The operation is an open-pit mine, in which the topsoil and other material is cleared away to expose the coal seam. The coal is loaded onto trucks that carry it to the crushing facilities and then to two silos, from where it is loaded onto trains.
The company has its own 150 km 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) (standard gauge) railroad, connecting the mine to its coal-loading terminal at Puerto Bolivar on the Caribbean coast. There are two 128-car unit trains, each carrying 12,000 tons of coal per trip. The round-trip time for each train, including loading and unloading, is about 12 hours. The coal facilities at the port are capable of loading 4,800 tons per hour on to vessels of up to 175,000 tons of dead weight.
The mine, railroad and port operate 24 hours per day.
Cerrejón directly employs 5,300 workers, with a further 5,000 employed by contractors.
The reserves at Cerrejón are low-sulfur, low-ash, bituminous coal. The coal is mostly used for electric power generation, with some also used in steel manufacture. The surface mineable reserves for the current contract are 330 million tons. However, total proven reserves to a depth of 300 metres are 3,000 million tons.

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Tags:

• Cerrejon
• kine
• mina
• miniera
• coal
• carbone
• mine
• open
• pit
• guajira

[francescoloro]

ciao Pippo lo sai che l'impianto di trattamento dei pneumatici dei camion di quella miniera è stato progettato in Veneto?