Spanning the Void
Linking the mine entrance (“adit”) to the ground facilities at Maarmorilik is a substantial engineering challenge. The cable car will have to span 1.7km and it has to rise 600m to the adit which is located on a cliff face made of white marble.
The cable car has been manufactured by Garaventa of Switzerland and is currently on site at Marmorilik. The lower terminal has been constructed with the steel superstructure being added this summer. Work has commenced on the upper terminal but there is still more excavation work required before the rock face can be strengthened with rock bolts and the reinforced concrete structure can be built. This work will be done by Gasser, another specialist Swiss company, together with EMJ, a Greenlandic civil engineering and construction company during the second quarter of next year.
Currently, the only practical way to access the mine is to climb down from the top of the mountain, which is accessed by helicopter. Part of the climb requires abseiling, so this is not an easy way to get machines and materials where they will be needed.
It is therefore planned to install a temporary cable from the adit to Maarmorilik, which will be capable of taking loads of up to 1 tonne which will then be winched across the fjord. Men will still have to access the mine from the top of the mountain and will spend several days at a time living in the mine during a work period.
At low temperatures, concrete takes a long time to cure and the construction team will have to work hard as Garaventa will be aiming to install the main cables before the ice melts in early June. They will not want the cables to come in contact with sea water, so carrying them across the ice is an important part of the installation plan.
Once the cable car is in place, we will then be able to take loads up to 5 tonnes in weight and work will commence to transport mining equipment and the components of the mineral processing plant into the mine. And, if all goes to plan, the first zinc and lead concentrates will be transported by the cable car from the mine to waiting containers at Maarmorilik from where they will be shipped to Europe for smelting into saleable metal.