MINE EXCURSION
198 process and then we went through a rehiring process, which
took about four months,” Odendaal explains. contractors, but tasked the operations team to do most of the
repairs and refurbishments.
The team’s next focus was to deal with technical issues and
get the mine up and running again. “We called in the cavalry
(other business units within the Afrimat group), to assist
with repair and recommission of all the mining equipment,
including tools, trucks, excavators, loaders and even the
beneficiation and processing plants. Just about everything on
site required refurbishment. To nurture a feeling of ownership
and pride, Odendaal decided not to appoint external specialist Up and running
“We spent about R20-million on additional equipment, spares
and tools to do the basic start-up, maintenance and to employ
the mechanical staff. The mechanical staff we sourced in-house
from other Afrimat divisions and they managed to get the show
on the road and in April 2017 the mine started producing iron
ore again, albeit in very small volumes. However, in August
2017, Demaneng was processing ore at about 50% of mine
Mobile equipment is used to crush ore from different mini pits on the property.
18
African Mining February 2020
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