Zijin-Continental Gold Sucursal Colombia is developing the Buriticá gold mine in the northwest of Columbia, approximately 72km from the city of Medellin. The area where the mine is located is mountainous and therefore logistically challenging. The reusable residues of the gold extraction process are used in an underground backfill, which is why they must be taken from the bottom of the valley to the mouth of the mine at 1,700m above sea level, thereby covering a difference in altitude of approximately 646m. What would be an arduous and long way for trucks with plenty of exhaust emissions becomes a swift and efficient job if a material ropeway is used.
In October 2017 the Austrian Doppelmayr company was awarded the contract to build a 1.4km long ropeway with material buckets and for a transport capacity of 175 tons per hour. The system was conceived as a continuous bi-cable ropeway. It has a fixed tensioned track rope for the material buckets with their carriage to travel on. The buckets are driven by the continuously moving haul rope loop to which they are attached via detachable grips.
To allow for the haul rope to be run at a constant speed, the buckets are detached from the loop in the stations and braked before they are loaded via a chute. Once a bucket has been filled, it is accelerated to running speed again and re-attached to the haul rope before leaving the station. In the unloading station, the bucket is once more taken off the haul rope. At the designated unloading point a special mechanism unlocks the latch on the bucket, the bucket is tipped, and the material is safely transferred onto another chute. The bucket then returns to its original position. It is locked again and re-attached to the haul rope before travelling back into the valley empty.
In the past, continuous bi-cable ropeways have often been used for material transport applications. For the Buriticá project, Doppelmayr’s engineers have revised the design and mechanics of continuous bi-cable ropeways from scratch and optimised it for the transport of material in buckets. The system complements Doppelmayr’s portfolio of material transport solutions. It was put into service in February 2021 and has a transport capacity of 175 tons of residues per hour.
Doppelmayr Transport Technology GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of the international Doppelmayr Group with headquarters in Wolfurt, Austria. Within the group, Doppelmayr Transport Technology is the point of contact for the transport of goods and materials. Doppelmayr is the technology leader and pioneer in ropeway engineering and is also present in other lines of business. Apart from material transport systems the group also designs, plans and manufactures passenger ropeways for winter and summer tourism as well as for the urban transit sector, rope propelled APMs (e.g., the systems currently operating at the airports of Toronto and Mexico City) or fully automatic high rise warehouses.
Technical data of the ropeway:
Length: 1.4km
Difference in elevation: 646m
Conveying capacity: 175t/h
Carriers: 20
Running speed: 6m/s
Number of towers: 1
