7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

DOI: 10.7251/BMC170701001G

VALORIZATION OF OVERBURDEN ON THE OPEN PIT OF RUDNIK

UGLJA-PLJEVLJA, MONTENEGRO

Miodrag GOMILANOVI1, Miodrag KALUEROVI1

1
Podgorica, e-mail: miogom@t-com.me, miskokal@t-com.me

ABSTRACT

The open pit "Potrlica" of Rudnik uglja- Pljevlja, Crna Gora, has a capacity of 1.5 million tons of coal
per year and about 6 million m3 s. m. overburden. The overburden consist the natural cement marls as
part of complex of the Miocene lake sediments. The average quality of cemented marls is quite
balanced by the mineral and chemical composition suitable for cement production.
The paper aims to point out to the extraordinary economic validity of a cement plant building on the
base of overburden that is waste now - the cost of coal production and the use of coal as a
technological fuel in that factory. The paper will also point to the necessary measures of environment
safety in the view of the climatic characteristics of Pljevaljska kotlina.
Reserves of this raw material provide a possibility of a cement plant capacity of 1.5 to 3.0 million tons
per year. An additional argument is the significant need for cement as a product for the construction of
infrastructure and other facilities in Montenegro, as well as for export.

Key words: overburden, marl, cement, coal, ecology.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Rudnik uglja- Pljevlja is located in the north of Montenegro at about 750 m above sea. It
is the largest producer of this energy resource in the Montenegro. Coal production in this area
began at the end of XIX and early XX century, and this company was founded in 1952.
Production was done on two open pits: "Potrlica" and "Borovia". So far, a total of 70 million
tons of coal have been produced, with the largest annual production of 2.7 million tons. Coal
is used for the production of electricity (TE- Pljevlja 210MW), of industrial and wide
consumption. Only in the area of some locality in field of Pljevlja existing exploitation
reserves are only about 70 million tons. The average coefficient of detection is 4.15m3, and
DTE 10.720 kJ/kg.
Geology of the pljevlja's basin consist the three packages: underlying (predominantly clays
with coal seams), main coal seam and immediate roof (marls and marl limestone). The
applied exploitation technology is discontinuous, except in the part of the haulage of
overburden, the combined transport is there. This technology is conditioned by the high
strength of the layers of overburden and it is necessary the drilling and mining operations.

1
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

Excavation is carried out by the shovel excavators and draglines with excavator bucket of
volume up to 15 m3, and haulage by dampers loads up to 100 t.

Figure 1. A technological scheme on overburden of open pit

2. OVERBURDEN

Overburden or roof of the main coal seam on the open pit "Potrlica" is made of the natural
cement marls and marl limestones. They are developed in the entire spatial distribution area of
the main coal seam. Their thickness rises from the periphery to the center of deposit, where it
reaches thickness of 128 m. Within this sediment there are the four litostratigraphic units,
primarily based on the content of CaCO3 component. There are: lower laporic limestones 1)
lying directly on coal seam and containing about 90% of CaCO3, 26 m thick, lower natural
cement marl 2) with 75% of CaCO3, 45 m thick, upper marly limestones 3) with 85-90% of
CaCO3, 13 m thick and upper natural cement marls 4) with 70-75% of CaCO3, 16 m thick.
From the aspects of applicability of the roof marls in Portland cement production the three
upper sections (2, 3 and 4) are the most favorable. The current overburden thickness- the
cemented marls in the surface of the "Potrlica" open pit ranges from 10 m to 115 m and
average is about 80 m. It has a 10 benches, the first is 15 m and the other 10 m.

2
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

Figure 2. Geological layout of the open pit

The reserves of cement marls on this open pit in this period amount to about 145 million tone
of m3 of solid mass. Reserves of A+B+C1 category are about 60%, and C2 are about 40%.
From this surface till now about 39 million m3of solid mass of overburden-marls there have
been deposited to the outside waste dump "Janjilo", to outside waste dump "Grevo" about 8
million m3 of solid mass, when in the excavated area, inside waste dump loading about 100-
110 m3 of solid mass.
It should be emphasized that in the area of the coal field Pljevlja at other sites-deposits also
overburden of marls of high quality. The reserves of cement marls in locality "Kaluii" are
about 13 million tons, locality "Rabitlje" 12,5 million tons and locality "Grevo" about 1
million tons. These reserves are categorized as C2 reserves.
The average quality of the balancing reserves of cement marls on the open pit "Potlica" is as
follows:
- SiO2 ... 13,48 %
- Al2O3 .... 3,11 %
- Fe2O3 2,06 %
- CaO ... 41,99 %
- Loss on ignition........ 37,39 %
- MgO2 .. 0,69 %
- SO3 .. 0,19 %
- Na2O 0,33 %
- K2O .. 0,56 %
- P205 . 0,08 %
- MnO . 0,25 %
- Degree of clinker saturation (DS ) .... 96,41 %
- Hydraulic module (HM ) ..... 2,28 %
- Silicate module (SM ) .........2,73 %
- Aluminate module (AM ) . 1,51 %.
- Specific gravity of pure marls...............from 1,85 to 1,95 t/m3.

3
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

Apart of marls from the existing open pit for the production of cement, in considerable
quantities deposited marl on the "Jagnjilo" landfill can be used, while the inside dump waste
and "Grevo" landfill, due to the worse parties of clayed coal and clays, as well as technology
of excavation, haulage and loading, usable in a smaller extent. This has become practically the
potentially technical deposits.

3. THE VALIDITY OF CEMENT PRODUCTION

Reserves, quality and other comparative advantages have influence that Rudnik uglja access
to the realization of an investment program for the cement factory since 1976. The plant had a
capacity of 327 thousand tons of cement annually, with the applied technology of wet process.
Unfortunately, the factory worked until 1988 with 53% of the capacity for production of
clinkers and 50% for cement production. The reasons for production termination were
economic and ecological. The factory had inadequate and expensive technology with high
specific energy consumption per unit of the products, exceptionally small capacity, and
location near the city with inoperative of the electro filters.
From today's professional and economic view, the approach to the construction of cement
factory is quite different. A significant contribution to the explanation of cement industry
development in Pljevlja is given in the Preliminary Study of cement factory construction in
Pljevlja, II phase of 3.000.000 tons per year, which was done by the Mainoprojekt- Kopring,
Belgrade 2005 for the Rudnik uglja- Pljevlja.
The interests of cement factory construction are multiple and can be defined, in addition to the
general social, and the interests of direct users as follows:
a) The interests of Montenegro
Emigration and reduction of the number of inhabitants from the north of Montenegro
is one of the major social problems primarily because of fail of formerly developed
industry in these areas;
Production or haulage of cement increases the use of rail from Bijelo Polje to Bar and
Bijelo Polje to border of Serbia.
Use of red sludge as technological waste in Podgorica.
Significantly improving the trade balance to abroad.
b) Interest of Rudnik uglja Pljevlja
Current overburden as a cost of coal production would be the basic raw material for
cement production;
The global negative attitude toward to production of electricity from thermal power
plant on coal is causing the price drop of coal, so it is necessary that this company to
search the other areas of coal usage where conditions exist;
An eventually developed of cement industry lead to an increase in the value of coal,
while the use of marl lead to a reduction of productional price of coal.
The production of electricity and cement production in this area and under these
condition are not excluded, on the contrary have a number of comparative advantages.

4
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

c) The interests of population of Pljevlja Municipality

To develop a profitable industry based on coal industry, which will with the provision
of well paid jobs to increase the purchasing power of the population, from which the
population of this municipality in the wider area will benefit;
Cement production enables the development of a number of labor intensive capcities
on the basis of this product and employment of the workers.

4. CEMENT PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Mineral processing for cement production, the clinkers is carried out by dry process, while the
wet process is no longer in use. Clinker production, as the most important process in cement
production is done in rotary kilns. The modern rotary kilns have new types of burners and the
systems for the air preheating for combustion. They enable that for the clinker production can
to use the various types of fuel such as: fuel oil, petroleum coke, various types of coal in
pulverized state, used oils, used car tires, and various types of waste. According to the fact
that the clinker production is about 80% of the total costs of cement production, the energy
costs are around 35-405, and therefore the importance of reduction of energy consumption,
and consequently, reducing the amount of gas as the products of combustion process.
Many offers, informative interviews and documents suggest that the cement industry in
Pljevlja by application of BAT (Best Available Technology) can be achieved by consumption
of 300 GJ/t of clinker and 100 KWh/t of cement. It is therefore realistic to expect that cement
production in Pljevlja will have a consumption of 0.3 tons of coal per ton of clinker and about
100 kWh per ton of cement. Norm of coal consumption would decrease for the energy that
would come from of municipal waste, old oils and other energy waste.
The listed characteristics of the production parameters refer to the Portland cement
production, with the note that other types of cement can be produced in the same equipment.
The most important alternative types are aluminum cements, for which is availability of
different types of red and white bauxite in Montenegro. The bauxites of Montenegro were
produced in the factories of Europe and Yugoslavia, and particular in the cement factory in
Pula. In the world, more and more red sludge is used in cement, in quantities of 10-30%. A
special advantage is the fact that in Podgorica the red sludge is an environmental problem and
in the case of construction of the cement it becomes a significant input. The red sludge would
be previous calcined in an existing rotary kiln that is not being used because a new kiln for
calcination of alumina has been built in a case that the alumina factory continues for now
stopped production.

5
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

5. INVESTMENT AND BASIC ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Cement production capacities of 3 000 000 tons per year, according to the completed study, is
355 000 000 . Cost structure for this capacity is given in the following table.

Table 1. Cost structure of the cement production

Production of cement 3.000.000 tons per year
Costs
Total costs
No. Type of costs /per In % in ratio of total costs
000
tons
1 2 3 4
1 Interest 4.47 13401330 8.67
2 Rate 12.33 36978500 23.92
3 Annuities 16.79 50379830 32.59
4 Energy 12.88 38630000 24.99
5 Bruto salary 3.36 10087000 6.52
6 Investment 1.83 5500000 3.56
maintenance
7 Raw material 8.97 26920000 17.41
8 Other 1.87 5607000 3.63
material
costs
9 Immaterial 2.49 7476000 4.84
costs
10 Unexpected 3.33 10000000 6.47
11 Total 51.53 154599830 100.00

Figure 3.Structure of the costs

6
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

The following important facts should be noted from the table of production costs and graphic
layout:
1. Production costs, including the capital costs, where 12-year the repayment are planned
and average annual interest of about 4.5% is 57% of the sales price of cement.
2. In addition to the capital costs, key costs are energy and raw material costs.
3. The costs of coal at a consumption of 0.3 tons per ton of cement, which is financially 7.8
per ton of cement are introduced in the energy costs. Due to the nature of technological
process in cement, 75 kg of ash from used coal, with value of about 6,7, which means
that ash from coal practically null the cost of coal in cement production.
4. In other application of coal ash is significant cost and environment load.
5. In the cost of raw material, the costs of marl and filter ash are calculated, which are
usually load to environment and cost, while in cement production their consumption is
part of the solution to the problem.
According to the Study, the possibility of Portland and special calcium sulfoaluminate cement
in Ugljevik pg. 62, the price of cement in environment ranges from 88-92.5 /t, without VAT.
For the projected cement production of 3 million tons per year, and price of 88 /t, without
VAT, the total annual revenue is 264.000.000 . The costs for this production, according to
the previous table (column3), amount to 154.599.830 and profit 109.011.130 .

6. ENVIRONMENT SAFETY

From the aspect of environment safety, the critical factors are the emissions of carbon dioxide
and other gases both in cement production and in the production of electricity. Another
important component that endangers the environment is the dust which follows this
production process. The amount of emitted carbon dioxide and other harmful gases depends
on the amount of fuel which burns and from the modernity of technology. The choice of
location of the production facilities has an important impact on this area. Taking into account
the climatic characteristics of the valley of Pljevlja, so that to this problem needs to give a
special attention.
A special advantage for the cement industry in Pljevlja is also the fact that for the thermo
power plant in this municipality ash disposal is a problem which will be used as a very
important raw material in the cement production.
The complex use of raw materials and the recycling of industrial and other waste are the main
problem of the environment safety. The cement industry is on the line of solving both
mentioned problems.

7
 7th BALKANMINE CONGRESS Proceedings, Prijedor 2017

REFERENCES

[1] Mineralne sirovine i rudarska proizvodnja u Crnoj Gori, M.Gomilanovi i dr. Podgprica 1999g.
[2] Prethodna studija opravdanosti izgradnje fabrike cementa u Pljevljima II faza 3.000.000 t/god. 2005.g.
[3] Studija mogunosti proizvodnje portland i specijalnog kalcijum sulfoalumuminatnog cementa u Ugljeviku.
[4] Investiciono tehnika dokumentacija Rudnika uglja Pljevlja.