Press Releases

MOELLER ELECTRIC FOR KAZAKHSTAN

Switchgear company Moeller Electric has completed and delivered control panels for eight motor control centres and 231 field isolator stations at the JSC Varvarinskoye Mine in Kazakhstan.

The panels were ordered by Senet Projects, the South African firm appointed to oversee engineering, procurement and construction management at Varvarinskoye.

Location for the mine development venture is northwest Kazakhstan, close to the border with Siberia.

Projected cost to develop the complete mine is around 95-million US Dollars.

Mine production will comprise copper and a small proportion of low-grade gold ore.

Senet’s EPCM contract at Varvarinskoye is significant in that it extends the company’s footprint of African experience firmly outside the continent into Asia.

Moeller Electric has worked previously with Senet on several mine development projects in West Africa.

For Varvarinskoye, all design work for the control panels and field isolators was undertaken by Moeller Electric engineers based in Johannesburg.

Panel-building was sub-contracted to Low Voltage Switchboards, the “Moeller Approved” panel-builder appointed to the project.

The switchgear solution comprised boards built around Moeller’s sophisticated NZM-2, 3 and 4 high capacity electronic circuit-breakers, which are characterised by their ability to reliably and effectively manage fault currents.

Moeller DIL contactors and indication lamps were used throughout.

The panel switchgear begins with Moeller IZM air circuit-breakers on the incoming power supply, and moves down to Moeller moulded-case breakers for control on the low power circuits.

Cubic-type sheetmetal boards for each of the eight motor control centres house the IZM air circuit-breakers and top-running busbar, from which power is tapped and routed to either NZM or PKZ2 compartmentalised circuit-breakers.

Cable termination is at the bottom of the boards.

An interesting aspect of the Kazakhstan project was the language differential, which Senet Projects overcame using translators and a Russian-speaking engineer.

Varvarinskoye is scheduled for commissioning in October this year.

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