The Borynia and Zofiówka site had been connected earlier, in 2009. Therfore now, coming down with the shaft at Borynia site, for example, one can come out onto the surface with the Zofiówka or Jas-Mos site.
The director of the combined mine, the chief engineers of both sites, investment director of the combined mine, contractors representatives and PRG Intergwarek brigade met in the place of the historic merger of the two sites.
Works on combining of both movements started in 2009 and were carried out simultaneously from the Jas-Mos and the Zofiówka sites. The work was commissioned to third party contractors. Excavation pits from the Zofiówka (C- drift) was done by the workers of Jastrzębskie Zakłady Remontowe and from the Jas-Mos (W-3 drift) by the workers of PRG Intergwarek. Nearly three kilometers of the new drift had to be done to a designated point of merger of the two sites. Over 2,000 meters had been drilled from Zofiówka site and 850 meters from Jas-Mos. It was not an easy task for the brigades working at driving the drift.
-Considerable amount of water was coming out of the wall. Actually, all the time it had to be pumped. It was hard work in difficult conditions, but thankfully we managed to avoid major delays - emphasizes Zbigniew Matuszek, PRG Intergwarek department foreman.
New tunnel connects the excavations at the level - 600 at the Jas-Mos and 900 and Zofiówka. The pit will be the main haulage road for Zofiówka site.
- Now the conveyor belts will be built in the connecting drift. The width of the belt will be 1200 m. We assume that by the end of 2015, the whole Jas-Mos output will be transported to the Zofiówka site. This will allow the exclusion of the technological process the Jas-Mos site - states Czesław Kubaczka, director of Borynia-Zofiówka-Jastrzębie.
The underground combination of three sites of the Combined Mine Borynia-Zofiówka-Jastrzebie marks the next stage of strategic JSW investment to integrate technical and organizational mines Borynia, Zofiówka and Jas-Mos. The next step is modernization of the processing plant on the Zofiówka site. By the end of 2016 the processing plant should be ready to take the excavated material from all three sites.