Moura Mine Tailings Dredging

Neumann Dredging’s Nu-Endeavour was chosen to reclaim coal tailings from the Moura 2C pit.

These tailings were processed to recover the fine coal lost in earlier operations and it was part of a program to empty the pit to enable ongoing mining underground from the pit floor.

The dredge was called upon to produce 450 tonnes per hour of coal tailings, which were pumped distances of up to 2.5km to the processing plant. As the pit was some 45m deep, the end of the job necessitated pumping a vertical cliff face of some 30m to the booster station located at the top of the cliff.

The operation was on a 24 hour, 7 day per week basis and the coal tailing in various places were interspersed with some “liquorice” (a very fine type of coal tailings which bind together like plasticine). On several occasions the dredge was also called upon to dredge through rocky clay shale which were embankments put across the pit during the filling process.