United Wagon Company and Polymetal announce partnership

Research and production corporation “United Wagon Company” (UWC, the Holding or the Company) (MOEX: UWGN), Russia’s largest manufacturer of freight cars¹, and Polymetal (LSE, MOEX: POLY, AIX: POLY, ADR: AUCOY), which is one of the TOP-20 producers of gold and TOP-5 producers of silver globally and holds assets in Russia and Kazakhstan, have signed an agreement on the supply of 55 dump cars by the end of H1 2020. The batch of cars will be delivered to the Varvara plant for operation in Kazakhstan.

Varvara, Polymetal’s first operation in Kazakhstan, is a gold and copper mine with a modern 4.2 Mtpa processing plant. An excellent transportation infrastructure and inexpensive energy make it a perfect fit for becoming a regional processing hub. Today, Varvara comprises of an open-pit gold mine and the Komarovskoye gold deposit.

The UWC-produced dump cars are designed for transporting and automatic unloading of overburden and hard rock. The 32-6982 railcar to be supplied to the Kazakhstan-based entity will have a shock-absorbing floor, increasing resistance to the shock loads encountered when loading/unloading large rock fractions and thereby preventing damage to the car. Compared with its popular market competitor, the car has an increased payload capacity of 71 t and a body volume of 42 m³, allowing for a load increase of up to 10 t.

The dump car can be coupled to a freight train of any type, and run on the existing rail infrastructure of shippers and recipients. The side opening mechanism and pneumatic unloading system allows tilting the car body at an angle of 45° to either side with the sides opening simultaneously followed by its return to the upright transport position.

The car runs on the 18-9855 bogie with a 25 t axle load which extends its overhaul mileage and reduces significantly operating costs over the dump car’s entire life cycle of 32 years (for comparison, a similar standard freight car’s service life is only 22 years, being ten years shorter).

“We are operating at our full production capacity. We have to meet strict time and sequence requirements in our extraction, transportation, and processing activities. Moreover, the nature of our business implies working with large and heavy fractions of rock and so, when choosing a railcar supplier, we do focus on technical specifications and design reliability of their products. Dump cars manufactured by UWC meet our requirements,” said Igor Nikolishin, Managing Director at Varvara.

¹Data sourced from INFOLine-Analytics: https://infoline.spb.ru/news/?news=162724