Mining

The requirements for the products and services delivered by the mining industry are changing in their nature and scope at the same rapid pace as the advancement of social and technological developments.

For example, when miners looking for silver in the 16th century found a mineral similar to silver ore in the Erzgebirge mountains, but were unable to melt out any silver despite all their efforts, they gave it the name pitchblende and threw it on the stock-pile.

In the mid-20th century, this mineral, now known as uraninite, triggered an unprecedented level of mining activity in order to equip nuclear installations and weapons with the uranium inside.

A half century later, the task to remediate the contaminated sites left behind after uranium mining is an equally unprecedented effort. And at the start of the 21st century, we are now faced with the challenge of managing the disposal of the generated radioactive waste.

Did you know that...

• Schachtbau has already safeguarded 28 salt mining shafts with complex sealing systems for long-term security?

• Our mining specialists who rehabilitate old sites enter underground cavities that no one has entered for more than three hundred years?

• Schachtbau installed 250 t of steel, 74 piles and more than 300 m³ of reinforced concrete in just 51 days for the new headframe in Sondershausen?

• Our miners excavated thousands of meters of drifts at a depth of 800 m in the most extensive chromium ore deposit in the world?