ONTARIO - The skyline of Kirkland Lake changed recently when the 65-metre-tall concrete headframe for Kirkland Lake Gold's new Macassa No.4 shaft was slip formed in just 10 days.
Another significant event in the No.4 shaft construction occurred when the team of Cementation, Tesc, Anmar, Northern Equipment, Niiwin GP, Shaba Testing, Peter Bull, MDB Mining, the Ontario Provincial Police, and Kirkland Lake Gold carried out the lift and placement of the shaft sinking Galloway and the equipping deck into the shaft collar through the top of the headframe.
The lift started with the single drop deck that was attached to the bottom of the main Galloway once it was lowered into the No.4 shaft. The Galloway, over 90 tonnes and 26 metres long, had to be lifted over the top of the headframe and lowered blindly into an exact position below surface in the shaft collar. The crane cables were extended 126 metres from the tip of the boom to the final position of the Galloway where the steel work platform was secured to the concrete walls of the shaft.
A Liebherr 750-tonne crane was used to carry out the lift. Custom designed rigging was fabricated to ensure evenly distributed weight and a plumb (vertical) load for all three lifts. The lift commenced at approximately 3:00 p.m. and by 7:30 p.m. the Galloway had been secured in the shaft, weight had been transferred, and as Cementation's Tom Wadey put it, "The Eagle has landed."
To give you an idea of the scale and uniqueness of the job, when the lift was explained to a veteran crane operator with over 40 years of experience he said "This one should make the cover of Crane Monthly!"
Well done Macassa No.4 shaft team and a special thank you to Kirkland Lake Gold for their support making it all possible.
The Cementation group of companies delivers underground mine development and infrastructure as well as surface material handling and processing facilities solutions for mining projects worldwide. For more information on Cementation, visit www.Cementation.com.
This story first appeared on Canadian Mining Journal.