The coal mines of ArcelorMittal Temirtau are located in the Karaganda Coal Basin. The basin is more than 3,000 square kilometers and was formed by strata of Upper Devonian and Carbonic ages, Mesozoic and Cainozoic formations. Due to structural peculiarities, the coal basin is divided into three geology-based mining areas: Karagandinskiy, Sherubay-Nurinskiy and Tentekskiy. Karaganda basin is located on the area of the same name and in the center of this region. Carbon coal-content area occupies the land of about 2000 km2 at the total thickness 4000m. Four synclines are notable in the basin: Tentek, Sherubainur, Karaganda and Verkhnesokursk, first three of them make an industrial part of basin and are studied full enough up to the depths 700-1300m. Productive sediments are represented by Ashlyarik, Karaganda, Dolinsk and Tentek series which contain up to 30 coal seams with the total working thickness 40m, coal ash content varies within the limits of 10-35 % with the tendency of reduction upwards the section. The most-widely spread are coals of types from hvBb to mvb. Karaganda basin is considered as a high gas content and gas content seams intensively grow from the beginning of methane zone up to 400-500m reaching 15-20 m3/t, and are more stabilized on the depth within the limits of 22-27 m3/t. Gas weathering zone depth varies within the limits of 60-250 m.

ArcelorMittal Temirtau has eight underground coal mines located in and around Karaganda in Kazakhstan: Kostenko, Kuzembaeva, Saranskaya, Abayskaya, Kazakhstanskaya, Lenina, Shakhtinskaya and Tentekskaya.

In all mines, coal mining is carried out by longwall and development production faces. The produced coal is transported via belt infrastructure and skip shafts to the surface. From there, ROM coal is dispatched via a rail network to coal preparation plants (Vostochnaya and Temirtau) for processing.

All mines are connected to the main railway, and coal is transported by railway to the coal wash plants and power stations.

The mines produce primarily coking coal used for steelmaking at Temirtau and thermal coal for ArcelorMittal Temirtau’s power plants. For beneficiation of coking coal, two washeries are operated—one located near several of the coal mines and the other at the ArcelorMittal Temirtau steel plant(CPP “Vostochnaya” and Temirtau Washery-2). Surplus coal is supplied to group steel plants, mainly ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih, Ukraine.

VOSTOCHNAYA COAL WASHING PLANT
As part of a continuing programme of modernisation, Arcelor Mittal has installed two Jameson flotation cells and a horizontal belt vacuum filter.

The Vostochnaya plant is one of Arcelor Mittal’s two coal preparation plant’s in Kazakhstan, serving the steel plant in Temirtau as well as exporting coking coal. The plant treat a combined 10 million tonnes of coal per year providing ........