Develop a feeder chamber and a new 210m x 4m diameter Glory Hole within the existing one mile long tunnel.

Project Title

Project Highlander

Location

Glensanda Quarry, Oban

Country

Scotland

Client

Aggregate Industries United Kingdom

Business Sectors

Mineral Resources

Services (Technical Disciplines)

• Drilling and Blasting
• Mucking and Trucking
• Bolting, Meshing and Screening
• Shotcreting
• Mechanical and Manual Scaling
• Services Installation

Project Objectives

Glensanda use over 40 million litres of fuel a year. With the existing quarry now well developed, Glensanda is addressing the matter of uphill running costs involved in moving into ‘Project Highlander’.

‘Project Highlander’ will enable continued extraction from reserves – which amount to an estimated 800 million tonnes – enough to keep the quarry in operation for another 15-20 years.

The objective is to create a second primary crusher and a new glory hole at a lower level than the current one.  The rock on which the current primary crusher stands will then be quarried away. The position of the new primary crusher will involve less uphill running thereby reducing costs.

Our Role

QME has been retained by Aggregate Industries UK, to develop a feeder chamber and a new 210m x 4m diameter Glory Hole within the existing one mile long tunnel. This entailed the design and development of 350m access tunnels, the development of two chambers joined by a double ore pass system to the feeder system. The project is currently underway, being 100m into the main glory hole raise and developing the new main conveyor chamber.

The conveyor chamber development is being carried out while allowing the main conveyor system to continue operating.  A large steel protection has been constructed to house the active belt to allow close proximity blasting and mucking.

Geoscience Ireland Contact

Tom O’Brien – tom@qme.ie