MINE EXCURSION
the operation as possible and aim to reduce the amount of
development that needs to take place. Where the ore body dips,
the mine will use footwall drives, and when it flattens out, the
method will be to drift and fill, so in a way those voids can be
regarded as development as well. For Orion to mine 21 million
tonnes of ore, they will have to do about 110km of additional
lateral development, which will include decline shafts, drives
and crosscuts.
Underground, the mine looks like it did 30 years ago.
According to Shamu, the ore will be mined using a bulk mining
method, creating large voids backfilled with a cemented
paste. “We’ll use Jumbo drill rigs for lateral development of the
tunnels, longhole drill rigs for establishing the large production
voids and LHDs to clean up all the blasted ore and transport it to
the main haulage shaft. The loaders in production areas will all
A wooden platform 299m below surface from where the cameras are dropped into the water to check the integrity of the shaft that has been
submerged.
be remotely-controlled so that we don’t have operators at the
face. A fleet of trucks will take the ore to the shaft bottom, from
where it will be hauled up the vertical shaft,” says Shamu.
“Our intention from the beginning is to make sure that our
design future-proofs the mine. In these early stages, we’re
looking at remote loading to remove workers from the
open stopes. At the same time, we are investigating battery
technology and how much of it we can incorporate and
adopt. The mine is not fully-automated, but we are looking at
systems to put in place to lay the foundation to a switchover to
complete automation,” says Shamu.
Good location and infrastructure
The steel beams of the shaft structure are still 9mm in diameter, 3mm
above spec, despite the wear and tear.
14
African Mining April 2020
The Prieska mine is about four kilometres from Copperton,
where the Anglovaal workers were housed. It is 65km from
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