Hydraulic breaker at Kamchatka platinum winning

After more than 50 years a military area, Kamchatka, the biggest peninsula of East Asia, is no longer restricted for visitors. But still it is an inhospitable but picturesque landscape ? with temperatures below zero and severe storms most of the time: the area is also known as ?the place where all winds come from?.

The company management of ZAO KGD is depending on continuous development of any work process, to produce around 3 tons of platinum annually. In order to improve quarrying engineering methods, they exchange views with construction tools manufacturers to find superior solutions. So Atlas Copco CTO suggested that working with a hydraulic breaker could be best suited for primary breaking at the ?Icy? pit.

That`s when the HB 5800 Dust went on its passage to Kamchatka. A tight agenda for the delivery was organised to avoid the periods of snow or slush which would let the breaker`s transport freeze. By train, by sea and finally by a special off-road crawler the breaker reached its destination. But not just the breaker. Also a team of CTO service engineers found its way to the ?Icy? pit to ensure the equipment´s start-up. It took two flights, a cruise, a helicopter trip and finally nine hours off-road on a military crawler for them to arrive.

?But these efforts were worth it,? as Leonid Polumiskov, ZAO KGD Representative points out: ?After several months of Atlas Copco breaker running we can see day by day that we made a right choice. Excellent operating performance and high breaking power of the HB 5800 Dust clearly improve our productivity.”

While at Atlas Copco there`s lots of consideration about how to provide products and services in challenging weather conditions – at Kamchatka as well as other remote regions around the globe.