OREANDA-NEWS. March 24, 2009. DTEK, the fuel and energy industry leader in Ukraine today announced the latest phase of its strategic investment in the company’s coal business with the EUR 5.5million purchase of mining equipment from Czech manufacturer TMachinery.

Purchased for the Pavlogradugol company’s Pavlogradskaya and Ternovskaya mines, the MB-444P, МВ-410Е shearers and CZK-128 conveyors are part of the powered set featuring the Ostroj 07/125 roof support. Their deployment will facilitate increased breakage face workload, reduced ash content in coal and prolonged equipment service life. Similar equipment produced by TMachinery - shearers МВ-410 Е and scraper conveyors SZK-225 - has been in use since 2008 at Pavlogradugol’s Dneprovskaya and Stepnaya mines. The brand-new design of the bridge-type shearers (MB-444P) allows production in seams with a minimum extracted height of 0.8 m while for МВ-410Е shearers the minimum is 1 metre.

The overhaul life of an MB-444P shearer is 5 million tons of coal, which is significantly higher than the domestically manufactured equipment currently used by Pavlogradugol mines. The overall service life and time between repairs will therefore increase and the running costs will be reduced. Average production of one breakage set equipped with an MB-444P shearer and SZK-128 conveyor will be at least 2,000 tons per day, once again a marked improvement on the performance of the domestic equipment currently in use.

DTEK’s Coal Production and Enrichment Director Evgeniy Romaschin commented: “The application of leading-edge technologies at DTEK’s mines will allow our product to be competitive in external markets. Today, given the current surplus of Ukrainian coal, we are actively engaged in developing our marketing and increasing exports. But our success is dependent on constantly improving the quality of coal that we produce. This equipment will help to ensure just that.”

The TMachinery mining equipment has been purchased through DTEK’s project financing scheme. UniCredit Bank is DTEK’s partner in this project. The energy holding has secured a five-year loan with Euribor +1.7% interest rate.

DTEK Chief Financial Officer Yuriy Ryzhenkov said: “The introduction of this equipment will deliver a significant cut in the production cost of coal, increased productivity and stable supplies of fuel for both our internal customers at the Vostokenergo power plants and our external customers.”