Glensanda, Scotland, UK

Project Highlander

QME worked on the Glensanda Super Quarry at the west coast of Scotland for 1 year and six months. The quarry produces a high quality aggregates for the UK and European construction industry. QME was contracted to work on the tunnelling and raise boring jobs at the sites as part of an overall expansion of the quarry known as Project Highlander. The aggregates were shipped out by sea from the quarry through a vertical shaft and tunnel system.
The Project involved:

• Taking care of all underground development works
• Developing 320m of tunnel within the mountain at Glensanda
• Establish a system to transfer the quarried rock to a one mile long conveyor which feeds the aggregate directly on to ships at the coast
• Create a tunnel, 4m x 4m, fed by the raise bore ‘glory hole’ that links vertically from the surface feeding the granite aggregate down to the tunnel.

Following 300m of lateral development done underground and the 4m diameter raise bored 200m deep vertical shaft, two chambers were created underground, a glory hole chamber and a conveyor chamber. From there the material goes to a secondary crushing system and a washing plant to a loading facility and on to the ships.
The last stage included roof supporting shotcrete work and removal of a final bench above the conveyor in the conveyor chamber.