Mohmand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
White Marble, Mohmand
The stone was never the problem. Water was. We designed the operation around dry cutting and took water off the table.
- Location
- Mohmand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
- Material
- White marbleDimension stone and processing grade
- Scope
- Deposit assessmentDry cutting method designEquipment supplyExtractionExport
The situation
What we walked into
Mohmand white marble is a known and wanted material. The constraint on the site was not the stone, it was water.
Conventional diamond wire sawing needs a water supply at the cut, and in this terrain water has to be trucked in, which puts a hard ceiling on how much you can cut in a day and puts a real cost on every cubic metre.
What we did
End to end
Consultation
We assessed the deposit and confirmed the whiteness and grain consistency against export grade requirements.
Then we solved the water problem by designing the operation around dry cutting, which changed the equipment specification completely.
Equipment
We supplied chain saw quarrying machines, which cut dry and need no water at all, in combination with a diamond wire saw for the remaining faces. This is the standard high bench method for marble.
We supplied marble specification diamond wire, spring and plastic build rather than rubber moulded, because paying granite prices for wire on marble is wasted money. We also supplied a portable trimming wire saw for block squaring.
Operations
We trained the crew on the combined chain saw and wire saw method, where the chain saw separates the block along the connecting face and the wire saw takes the other faces.
We commissioned the full system and ran the first high bench with the crew.
The result
What changed
Water trucking for cutting was removed from the operating cost almost entirely, which took a significant recurring cost out of the site and removed the daily production ceiling.
High bench working raised output per working area substantially. Clean squared white marble block moved into export.
- Zero
- Water required at the cut
- Removed
- The daily production ceiling set by water trucking
- High bench
- Working method, chain saw and wire saw combined
- Export
- Grade whiteness confirmed before a machine was bought
Squared white marble blocks loaded for transport out of the quarry
Feedback
Halberg started by asking what our biggest problem was, then designed the operation around the answer. Water was the problem. They took it off the table.
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