Severouralsk bauxite mine got its first portion of ore from Little Red Riding Hood mine. SUAL Group had invested 710 million RUR in the project, reports the company’s press officer.

Little Red Riding Hood mine is a result of merging mine 14-14-bis with mine 15-15-bis (the latter has not been operating since January 1, 2007 due to using up all the ore deposits). The launch of Little Red Riding Hood aims to retain SUAL’s ore-extracting capacity as well as to cut transportation costs and to enhance the labor safety (the grooves of the original mines were badly damaged by underground waters and needed new reinforcing). In addition, the ventilation is much better now.

‘The second skip shaft produced the first portion of ore today. This means we have not a mere skip shaft, but a fully-functioning multi-faceted engineering facility consisting of a 1,400-meter-deep skip shaft, a 104-meter-high tower-type drop hammer, an ore deposit, and a 2.5-kilometer cross-drift that connects the two former mines,’ says Viktor Radko of SUBR.