Lohberg 2 shaft headframe gets its face back
On 31th December 2005, the Lohberg mine belonging to RAG Aktiengesellschaft, Essen/Germany, was closed down. Around 1,400 employees were transferred to other mines or took early retirement. In 2017, the rope sheaves were dismantled for refurbishment. In 2021, the entire shaft frame itself was scaffolded in order to renovate it as well. Now the cable sheaves are being reinstalled. This is a very complex undertaking (Figure 1).
The bottom two of the four sheaves are not making it easy for the fitters. They are lifted with a powerful crane to the top floor of the approximately 70 m high shaft frame. There they are then “re-attached” to a chain that is bolted to a correspondingly designed beam on the crane runway platform (the upper edge). The crane then enters this crane runway again. It picks up the rope sheave again and sets it down on the mounting points of the lower rope sheave platform. The same is done with the second rope sheave. The two upper sheaves are hoisted directly through the crane runway and placed on the upper rope sheave platform. For this, the height rescue team is also deployed in addition to the cranes.
Over the next few years, the two Lohberg shafts and the shaft in Hünxe will be prepared for pumping mine water. To do this, the shafts will be filled in and at the same time equipped with casing pipes through which the pumps will then be lowered into the depths: three casing pipes each on Lohberg 2 and under the already dismantled Lohberg 1 headframe, and four more in Hünxe. This ensures that sufficient pumping capacity is always available. The planned start of pumping is scheduled for 2032. Then, a total of around 33 M m3 of mine water will be discharged into the Rhine every year.
Stefan Roßbach, head of department at RAG-Grubenwasserhaltung: “Lohberg is an important mine water site for us. From here, all the mine water from the Emschermulde basin flows into the Rhine. Lohberg was an important mining location for a long time. It will continue to be important in the post-mining era. Here we can present the entire RAG portfolio: in addition to mine water management, e. g., the development of areas for new uses, including the generation of renewable energies.” (RAG/Si.)
