The company commissioned a Cat long-wall system at its Bogdanka mine, near Lublin in eastern Poland, in March 2010 and within six months had raised the bar to nearly 17,000 mt of cut coal a day. Since then, Bogdanka has continued to increase its daily output, with a plow face that began mining in the new 7/VII/385 panel last October having taking the world record to new levels. And, as well as achieving record output, the plow face advanced more than 27 meters at a 1.63-m cutting height. “We thought this achievement would be impos-sible for any shearer in seam heights as low as this,” said Zbigniew Stopa, vice presi-dent of Bogdanka.

Referring to the mine’s record-breaking achievements, Michael Myszkowski, prod-uct support manager for Cat plow systems, said, “The fact that Bogdanka uses arch supports makes the world record even more impressive. Bogdanka is very ambi-tious, and they have been putting a lot of effort into technical and organizational improvements at the mine. We have worked together on the system to make this new world record possible.

“The record is clear proof of just how productive our automated plow systems can be in the right hands,” Myszkowski said. Later this year Caterpillar is set to deliver a second plow system to Bogdanka, for use in the mine’s new Nadrybie section.