Adaro completes 99.3% of OPCC construction

By Romel S. Gurky

IDX-listed coal giant PT Adaro Energy Tbk said it has nearly completed the construction of its pit overburden crusher and conveyor (OPCC) system.

?We completed 99.3 percet of the OPCC?s physical construction, and we transferred operations from the project manager to PT Jasapower Indonesia (JPI) operations and maintenance. We are in the process of finalizing agreements between all the concerned parties. We completed a performance test in early October 2013 and a 4-hour, 12,000 ton per hour run at full capacity without interruption,? the company said in a quarterly report obtained Friday.

?We plan to conduct reliability testing in November 2013,? it added. At the end of September 2013, the total investment for OPCC was US$ 214.7 million.

Adaro said in early August that it expected the OPCC system to be fully commissioned during the third quarter period of this year.

The OPCC system is seen crucial to help improve efficiency, productivity and save cost at the company?s coal mining operation as the amount of overburden removed from its pit mine has grown to more than 300 Mbcm per year.

Handling and disposing of such volumes of overburden has become more expensive and is a major challenge. A decision was made in 2010 to start mechanizing the overburden removal by installing a series of crushing and conveying systems that will transport overburden and spread it on outlying dumping areas that are not accessible for overburden trucks.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak