Repository Mine Konrad – Modernization of Shaft Hoisting Systems and Development of Adjacent Shaft-Related Underground Workings

The Konrad iron ore mine, which was decommissioned in the 1980s, is currently being prepared to meet the requirements of a repository mine for radioactive waste with negligible heat generation. A key component of the conversion into a repository is the rehabilitation of the two existing vertical mine structures, Shaft Konrad 1 and Shaft Konrad 2, as well as the expansion of the adjacent shaft-related underground workings. The two joint ventures Schächte Konrad ASK 1 and ASK 2, each consisting of the mining specialist companies THYSSEN SCHACHTBAU GMBH and Deilmann-Haniel GmbH, are aiming to complete the project by 2020 on behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft zum Bau und Betrieb von Endlagern für Abfallstoffe mbH (DBE). In doing so, they are making a decisive contribution to the long-term safe disposal of radioactive waste from the coming decade of this millennium. ASK 1 was awarded the contract in April 2009 to modernize the incoming Shaft Konrad 1 as a hoisting and man-riding shaft. In March 2010, ASK 2 was commissioned with the conversion of the outgoing Shaft Konrad 2 and the development of the adjacent shaft-related underground workings. This work has already been reported in the Thyssen Mining Reports 2010 and 2012/13.