Surface Miners can mine raw materials such as coal, gypsum, salt, phosphate, bauxite or lime in open-cast mines. They mine commodities selectively, ensuring a high quality and optimum exploitation of the deposit. Surface Miners are also used to cut routes or lower tunnel floors. Centrally positioned underneath the machine, the cutting drum has a customized design to match all customer requirements. The extracted material can be deposited behind the machine in windrows, sidecast via an integrated discharge conveyor or loaded directly onto transport vehicles.

Speaking on the trending features and technologies in their range of mining equipment, Ramesh Palagiri, MD and CEO, Wirtgen India, said, “Wirtgen is the market leader in surface mining, offering a technically mature product portfolio for opencast mining, which has been tried and tested in operations around the globe. The surface miners from Wirtgen cover the full performance range in mining, earthworks and rock construction to up to 15 million tonnes of mining material per machine per year- this is truly unique! Wirtgen surface miners offer cutting widths ranging from 2.20 m to 4.20 m and cutting depths of between 20 cm and 83 cm.”

He added, “Wirtgen is the only manufacturer covering a scope of performance ranging up to 3,000 tonne per hour with direct loading by conveyor belt. Wirtgen surface miners cut primary resources such as coal, gypsum, iron ore, salt, phosphate, bauxite, limestone or granite, achieving high degrees of purity in the process. They are increasingly used as primary extraction equipment also in newly opened-up opencast mines or extensions of existing opencast mine operations.”