PT Bukit Asam (Persero) Tbk., Indonesia or PTBA, holder of two coal mine sites in South and West Sumatra, is currently increasing its production from coal mining in Tanjung Enim. In line with this production increase up to 25mt (million tonnes) per year by the year 2014, PTBA is improving the throughput of Tarahan Port by developing new infrastructure. As part of the new infrastructure there are also two new railcar unloading stations being built and PTBA recently awarded the contract for the supply of the coal wagon unloading equipment to ThyssenKrupp Foerdertechnik GmbH (TKF) of Germany.
The coal wagon unloading equipment consists of two units of O-type tandem rotary rail car dumpers, two indexers for positioning of the wagons, four wheel grippers to hold the wagons in position during the unloading procedure and four apron feeders for extraction of the coal from underneath the bunkers. Each tandem car dumper consists of two single car dumpers and is designed for a theoretical unloading rate of 2 x 33 wagons/h, equal to an average unloading rate of 3,000tph (tonnes per hour). It is also possible to operate one single barrel of the tandem car dumper for unloading of a single wagon (1 x 33 wagons/h).The trains consist of up to 60 wagons with a maximum total weight of 4,330 tonnes. After uncoupling of the locomotives from the train, the indexers will position the wagons in the car dumper barrels. Each O-type rotary tandem car dumper will be capable of simultaneously unloading two four-axle wagons with a maximum total weight of 72.15 tonnes each. While these two tandem railcar dumpers are the first to be supplied by TKF to Indonesia, they are part of the more than 200 railcar dumpers designed and supplied worldwide by ThyssenKrupp Foerdertechnik.