Although China is the second largest coalproducing country in the world, the geological conditions of the country's coal seams are not always favorable. The coal seams in most of the existing coal-mining areas are too deep for surface mining so about 90% of China's total coal production is from underground mines.

About three years ago CASAR's mining sales and technical group began seeking a partner in the Chinese coal industry to test our special mining ropes. After several visits and technical evaluations on their winding system, Huainan Mining Industry Group, one of the largest mining groups in China, agreed to test our CASAR ropes at their Zhang Ji Mine.

In the mining industry, shutting down equipment for a week to replace ropes is extremely costly. These maintenance breaks could take place every year which adversely affects the mine's profit.

It is a huge benefit to a mine to be able to run the machines longer between changeouts. Huainan Mining's target was to reach a rope lifetime that enables the mine to extend the time between scheduled rope changeouts to two or three years. When CASAR first met with them they could not reach year two on our conventional or competitor's ropes so they often changed ropes after one year to avoid an unscheduled breakdown.