Headframe pour under way at K3

Mosaic Esterhazy K3 expansion • 313 foot headrame will be complete in September

August 24, 2020, 7:53 am
Kevin Weedmark

<b>Going up</b><br> The slip form is being poured for the south headframe at the K3 expansion at Esterhazy. Rising at 6.5 inches an hour in a continuous pour, it will take 24 days to reach its full height. The north headframe at K3, at 380 feet, is the tallest structure in Saskatchewan.

Going up
The slip form is being poured for the south headframe at the K3 expansion at Esterhazy. Rising at 6.5 inches an hour in a continuous pour, it will take 24 days to reach its full height. The north headframe at K3, at 380 feet, is the tallest structure in Saskatchewan.

The next phase of Mosaic’s $3 billion K3 expansion at Esterhazy is under way with construction of the 313-foot concrete portio of the south headframe.

The slipform is going up in a continuous pour, rising at 6.5 inches an hour for 24 days.

The south headframe won’t be quite as tall at K3’s north headframe.

Construction on the south headframe at Mosaic’s K3 mine at Esterhazy.

At over 380 ft., the North K3 headframe is the tallest structure in the province.

It houses and operates the massive hoists and skips that will transport potash to the surface from more than half a mile underground.

The site contains some of the largest Koepe hoists in the world (60-ton payload skips) to achieve the planned future production requirements.

Designed by Hatch, the hoists will utilize leading-edge technology and state-of-the-art automation.

The total finished dimensions of the two headframes will be:

South Headframe:
Top of Concrete = 313’
Top of Roof = 335’
Top of Steel/Headframe = 346’

North Headframe:
Top of Concrete = 312’
Top of Roof = 374’
Top of Steel/Headframe= 385’

The K3 expansion has been under way for several years. In February 2017, potash was reached at a depth of 3,350 feet.

Construction on the south headframe at Mosaic’s K3 mine at Esterhazy, part of the $3 billion K3 project.

First ore in the service shaft was achieved in December 2018, and commissioning of both hoists was completed shortly afterwards.

New headframe

On Friday, August 14, Mosaic contractor Hamon Custodis Cottrell Canada, Inc. began the continuous slip-form concrete pour to build the 313-foot-tall south headframe to accompany the existing north headframe.

The continuous pour height will reach 307 feet and will take 784 concrete truckloads and 24 days to complete.

Once the main slip-form is completed, an additional six-foot section will be poured for the top ‘pent-house’ base which will take another week, with Hamon completing its work at the end of September.

Every hour the structure grows another six and a half inches.

A concrete truck arrives every 45 minutes, delivering a total of 4,350 cubic meters of concrete.

Another three million pounds of rebar is also part of the build.

The new south headframe is a replacement for the smaller temporary headframe which was previously used for shaft sinking and for the installation of shaft bottom steel in the mine.

Once the headframe structure is complete, work will shift inside the headframe to prepare it for operation.

This includes adding the infrastructure needed to hoist millions of tonnes of potash ore from the new K3 mine, which will be transported on overland conveyors to the existing K1 and K2 mills for processing.

“Safety will continue to be the top priority as the Mosaic and Hatch project team carefully and continuously build on Esterhazy’s potash legacy and Mosaic’s future, one inch at a time,” says Mosaic’s Director, Capital for K3, Bernie Boutin.