The 1987 Coal Review BULLMOOSE

The Bullmoose coal mine, in northeastern British Columbia, is a joint venture of Teck Corp. (51%), Lornex Mining Corp. (39%) and Nissho-Iwai (Canada) Ltd. (10%). It is managed and operated by Bullmoose Operating Corp. The 1.7-million-tonne-per-year operation consists of an open-pit mine, a plant facility in the Bullmoose Creek valley below the mine, and a separate rail loadout facility on the B.C. Rail branchline. Plant construction started in 1982, mine pre-produc tion in 1983, and production in 1984.

There are five main coal seams within the coal-bearing unit, which is about 80 m thick. The five seams total 12.6 m in thickness. The main coal reserves are contained in the South Fork area, and the West Fork area some 4 km to the west.

Saleable reserves of metallurgical coal exceed 45 million tonnnes. In addition, there are smaller tonnages of thermal coal formed by near-surface oxidation of metallurgical coal.

The South Fork open pit has only one relatively flat working wall at about a 25 degree slope. Sufficient waste is removed so that the coal seams can be effectively blended while allowing for about two to three months of raw coal feed to be exposed at any one time. Haul roads vary from relatively flat to minus 10% loaded.

Waste is removed by drilling and blasting, and is loaded into 110-tonne mechanical haul trucks by 12.5-cu-m 2100 P&H electric shovels and 12-cu-m hydraulic Marion-Dresser 3560 backhoes, which also load coal. This fleet of 19 Komatsu 110-tonne mechanical drive trucks was the first of its size in North America. There are also four Unit Rig M170 155-ton capacity trucks. Other mobile equipment (dozers, graders, loaders, scrapers) are largely Caterpillar. A mobile crushing plant is used to provide road rock. Since opertions began in late 1983, the mine has moved more than 50 million band cu m (130 million tonnes) of waste rock and produced more than seven million tonnes of clean coal.

Raw coal from the plant is fed to a grizzly, from which undersize is collected in a 350-tonne bin and fed to a rotary Breaker. Broken coal (– 38 mm) is conveyed 725 m downhill on an overland belt to a 4,000-tonne raw coal silo, from which vibrating feeders and another conveyor move it to the preparation plant.

The raw coal is slurried, deslimed and distributed to two parallel circuits. Coarse coal, about 70% of the total, goes to a conventional, heavy media circuit. Fine coal goes to a 2-stage water-only cyclone. Final clean-up is by flotation. All clean coal streams are collected by the dryer feed conveyor and taken to a stoker-fired dryer, which is fuelled by clean coarse coal. Coal is dried to about 6% moisture before storage in the 5,000-tonne clean coal silo. The design of the preparation plant is flexible to allow bypassing the plant and/or the dryer with raw coal.

Under contract with Arrow Bulk Carriers, clean coal is hauled 35 km from the plant to a truck dump at the rail loadout silos, near Tumbler Ridge. Each of the two silos can hold 11,000 tonnes and is 71 m high, 22 m in diameter. Rail haul to the port facility at Ridley Island is by B.C. Rail to Prince George and then cn Rail to Prince Rupert, a total distance of 1,000 km.

The Bullmoose operation employs about 400 people. Training is provided for operators, apprentices and trades men. Housing for employees is in the new town of Tumbler Ridge (popula tion: 3,500 to 4,000), some 40 km from the mine.