Bauxite from Paragominas is mined using strip mining technology. It is sorted and crushed for transportation as a slurry through a 244-kilometer-long pipeline, then refined into alumina at Alunorte.
Hydro’s only operated mine, the Paragominas bauxite mine. To access the bauxite deposits, which are located 8 to 12 metres underground, the overlying vegetation, topsoil and overburden must first be removed.
Hydro uses strip mining in Paragominas, a technique that avoids the formation of an overburden stockpile. Thus, all overburden moved for mining purpose is used to reconstruct the topography of the strip previously mined, prior to rehabilitation of the mined areas. Part of the overburden (laterite) is also used for paving roads and for raising the heights of existing tailing dams and constructing new ones.
The mining operation has two major conditions to consider: a high stripping ratio (7.6 in volume) and a high rainfall, thus it is necessary to have a mining system that minimizes the cost of waste stripping and aids selectivity.
The main objective to introduction of surface miner (SM2500 Wirtgen) in the Paragominas bauxite Mine is to reduce operating costs and investments, replacing the equipment of current mining system (CAT D11 dozers in scarification process and recovery the pit, CAT 365CL excavator in ore loading and CAT 160M in the square after scarifi cation) with a diff erentiated system, composed mainly by SM 2500.