Kure, Turkey

All change for Asikoy copper mine

Moving ore
production
underground
Copper has been mined for many
years at the Asikoy open pit,
located in Kure county, some
60‑km north of Kastamonu in the
western part of Turkey’s Black
Sea Region. Kure itself is 25 km
from the Black Sea coast, and 300
km from Ankara. A major open
pit operation was established in
the mid-sixties, and production
continues to this day. However,
reserves were diminishing, and,
with the available orebody exten-
sions at depth, a plan for under-
ground mining was evolved. This
required excavation of a conveyor
adit to transport rock from under-
ground to the existing mill, and
a vehicle access adit, together
with a spiral ramp to the base View of Asikoy open pit mining operation.
of the known deposit. Shafts for
backfill and ventilation were also
needed. Production commenced contract by STFA tunnelling division. The sump at the base of the mine
in 2001, when STFA Construction Average advance was 120 m/month. has 2,560 cu m capacity, and there is a
and STFA Tunnelling Corporation The top half of each round was drilled natural water make of 12 lit/sec. Two
Joint Venture took over the under- from the levelled muckpile. The total vertical shafts to surface and one sublevel
ground mining operation as con-
development carried out prior to produc- shaft facilitate ventilation. The exhaust
tractor, using a fleet of Atlas
Copco equipment which includes tion was 1,954 m of ramp drivage, 815 m shaft is equipped with a cover, which
production and development drill of shaft sinking, and 3,331 m of other can be raised in winter to induce natural
rigs, loaders, and trucks. Monthly development. air movement.
ore production is around 45,000 t
at average grade 2% Cu, with cut-
Portal entrance to Asikoy underground mine.
off grade of 0.5%.

Access
The vehicle access adit is horizontal,
and connects with the spiral ramp
developed in the footwall of the
­orebody down to the sump level. The
orebody, which dips at between 45 and
60 degrees, is accessed from the ramp,
along levels spaced at 12 m vertical
intervals.
The 20 sq m oval-plan spiral ramp
was driven at 5-7 degrees from 932 m
level to 792 m level by hand between
1998 and 2000 using Atlas Copco BBC
16W pneumatic rock drills with jack-
legs. This work was carried out under

underground mining methods 73

 Kure, Turkey

Development
An Atlas Copco Rocket Boomer 282
equipped with COP 1838ME rock drills
is used to develop the ore and waste
drifts.
The Rocket Boomer has one extend-
ing boom to facilitate drilling off the first
rounds in strike drifts at right angles.
Drill hole diameter is 45 mm,
and hole length 3.5 m. The mine has
conducted trials of bits from differ-
ent manufacturers, and has settled
on Secoroc as the most cost-effec-
tive. Around 250 m/month of drivage
is required to keep pace with the
stopes, all of which are mined on the
retreat.
Most development is within the com-
petent footwall rock mass. The orebody
exhibits different rock mass character-
istics. Ground support is by shotcrete, Scooptram ST6C, one of three at Asikoy.
bolting with mesh, mesh reinforced
shotcrete, standard Swellex in 2.4 m The Rocket Boomer 282 handles all Production
and 3.3 m lengths, and cement grouted rockbolt drilling, with 37 mm holes for
bolts in 3 m, 4 m and 6 m lengths. Swellex and 64 mm holes for grouted The mining method is longhole bench
Two manually-controlled Atlas Copco rebar. The mine is working with Atlas stoping with post backfill. The ore is
Scooptram ST6C loaders are used for Copco to increase the use of Swellex, developed by driving strike access drifts
mucking development faces. because of its better controllability. with cross sectional area of 21.68 sq

Line-up of Atlas Copco equipment at Asikoy mine.

74 underground mining methods

 Kure, Turkey

m along the footwall contact, or in the

centre of the orebody. Stope preparation
is carried out by driving 7 m-wide x Surface
4.5 m-high sill drifts across the strike, Belt conveyor
to the hangingwall or footwall. These
drifts vary in length, depending on the
thickness of the orebody.
An Atlas Copco Simba H1254 with
top hammer is used for stope drilling.
Blast holes with a diameter of 76 mm
are drilled downwards on several pat-
terns, according to ore and stope type.
The mine prefers downhole drilling as Flexowell
Sill drift development
the most practical for their patterns,
while reducing the safety risk. Stoping
Muckpile

At the end of the sill drifts, a 1.5 m

x 1.5 m drop raise is opened by long-
Ore pass

hole blasting, and this is widened out to

create a free breaking face. Thereafter,
the bench between the sill drifts is Ore
blasted towards the open slot one or two Feeder
rows at a time. The main blasting agent Grizzly Belt conveyor
is ANFO, which may be diluted with
polystyrene beads for the profile holes,
with Powergel primers and Nonel initia- Crusher
tion. The ore is mucked from the lower
sill drift using a remote controlled Atlas Cemented backfill
Copco Scooptram ST6C. After complet-
ing the extraction of the ore between the Production flow from orebody to surface.
sill drifts, the open stope is backfilled
to the floor level of the upper sill drift. Stoping sequence at Asikoy.
Once two adjacent p ­ rimary stopes are
backfilled, the ­primary pillar can be
mined as a secondary stope.
The production stopes can be up to
60-70 m-long, but average around 30 m- Development Production drilling
long. Currently, 8 m is left between

Production drilling with Simba H1254. HW HW

slot
Blasting and mucking

Filling

HW HW

underground mining methods 75

 Kure, Turkey

Rocket Boomer 282 on surface. Unique Flexowell vertical conveyor installation.

sublevels, and the extraction drives are located in Samsun, along the Black Sea There are 140 men on the mine. In total,
4.5 m-high. The latest stope, which lies coast, and to export ­markets. thirteen engineers have been employed
between 894 m and 912 m levels, has a for production and engineering. Atlas
height of 12 m, and this larger dimen- Training Copco has a maintenance contract for
sion will be increasingly used. its equipment at the mine, and provides
This is the first mining operation where a workshop container manned by a
Rock handling SFTA has been involved and, being the fitter.
only Turkish-operated mechanized
The 2.5 m-diameter main orepasses are mine, the company takes education Acknowledgements
also longhole drilled using the Rocket and training very seriously. Atlas
Boomer 282, or hand drilled. An ore- Copco undertook the training of the Atlas Copco is grateful to the man-
pass system to the 804 level feeds the mine instructors, and SFTA has car- agement of Asikoy copper mine for
underground crusher. Crushed ore sized ried on, giving every man on the mine the opportunity to visit the project.
at –10 cm travels along a conveyor belt specific education, each with a course Particular thanks are due to Kenan
to a feeder, and into a Flexowell verti- every three months. The average age of Ozpulat, project manager, and Serkan
cal conveyor belt system at 792 level. operators is around 30, and most have Yuksel, chief mine engineer, for their
A trunk conveyor at average grade of 8 been with the group for many years. assistance at site and in reading draft.
degrees transfers the ore to the surface
primary crusher. Minetruck MT2000 discharges cemented backfill into a primary stope.
There are four vertical shafts for
backfilling at Asikoy, with three sub-
vertical shafts.
Two types of fill are used for backfill-
ing. These are cemented rock fill (CRF)
and uncemented waste fill (WF). CRF,
with a cement content of 5% by weight,
is used for backfilling of prim­ary stopes.
Secondary stopes are waste filled.
Minetruck MT2000 trucks are used for
both types of backfilling.
SF TA has a ten-yea r contract
to produce 30,000 t/month of ore
grading 2% copper at a fixed price per
tonne, although 414,000 t was produced
over the last year. The ore is concen-
trated to 17% at site, and is trucked to
the port of Inebolu, some 25 km away,
from where it is shipped to a smelter

76 underground mining methods