• EXCURSION
AN EXTRAORDINARY EXCURSION TO THE GLEN DOUGLAS QUARRY
Sharyn Macnamara met with Piet Ackerman , mine manager at the Glen Douglas Dolomite quarry in Midvaal South Africa ; plant manager , Freddie Kinghorn ; and SHEQ co-ordinator , Trudie Els , on a mine excursion with a difference in November 2021 .
African Mining was drawn to visit Glen Douglas Dolomite ( Pty ) Ltd , situated next to the Klip River on the outskirts of the beautiful village of Henley on Klip as it tells an extraordinary tale of a highly successful quarry , unique in so many ways . Steeped in history , this quarry co-exists with a community-focused recreational centre in the form of Bass Lake , which the quarry itself created over the years in its A-pit mine .
The current Glen Douglas mine is an open-pit operation producing metallurgical dolomite , commercial aggregates , and agricultural lime products . It is one of the largest dolomite quarries in South Africa and is the largest dolomite quarry in the Afrimat Group , being
32 • African Mining • February 2022
Afrimat ’ s first venture into industrial minerals when the company , on a mission to diversify , acquired it from Exxaro in 2010 . “ We mine approximately one million tons of dolomite a year , 30 % of which is -2.5 % low silica dolomite , 99 % of which we transport via Transnet to ArcelorMittal Steel ’ s Vanderbijlpark and Newcastle Works , for which the quarry was originally opened 65 years ago by the state-owned company , Iscor ,” says Ackerman .
The creation of a beautiful lake for the community Kinghorn explains that the original mine opened in 1956 , focused entirely on low silica dolomite mining to be used in iron and steel production . The low silica dolomite assists in the removal
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