ORMETO-YUMZ Heavy Engineering Joint Stock Co (part of Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation) made and delivered MKPSH 45 slag-ladling machine for Kazzinc based in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. The assembly jobs are expected to begin in August 2008, while the delivery contract was signed in May 2007.

The machine is to be employed at the new lead and copper plants that Kazzinc and Engineering Dobersek GmbH are currently putting up in Ust-Kamenogorsk. The newly designed machine’s unique advantage lies in its outstanding productivity. The unit is capable of producing 45 tons of slag briquettes every hour (a similar machine located at Mednogorskiy ore and sulfur works can only make 12.5 tons a day) thanks to the machine’s length: it is actually seventy-seven meters long. It appears that this is the first machine of such productivity ever designed and made.

According to ORMETO’s chief designer Andrei Kosukhin, once the machine has been launched, the Kazakh enterprise will be able to get everything that can be used from the slag waste and make good quality gas-permeable slag bars.

‘Our designers suggested that the slag blocks should be cooled with the help of the air-and-water method, which would ensure their gradual, homogeneous, flawless cooling,’ he added.

The recycled lead-bearing slag will be used for filling the used cavities in the mines; this is a somewhat expensive but very environmentally-friendly way of getting rid of slag. In addition, the environmentally safe technologies used will make it possible to reduce the pollution of air with sulfur dioxide as well as cut harmful emissions by 13,000 tons a year.