Mine excursion
Meyer says that the company initially
drilled six percussion holes, and
the results were encouraging. This
prompted Meyer and his team to drill
eight core holes at the end of 2014, and
the results were positive. “We found
coal, did the analysis, and we had a
project,” says Meyer.
Moving material
This resulted in more funding and
the project was fast-tracked into
the second phase. Mareda, Meyer,
and their team did a scoping study,
more drilling, and started looking at
potential contractors and suppliers.
“In 2016, we started engaging with
Stefanutti Stocks, and they signed the
contract last year,” says Mareda. Initial
scoping studies were done with Sound
Mining and Stefanutti continued with
[14] MINING MIRROR APRIL 2018
Freddie Strydom, contracts
director at Stefanutti Stocks.
preliminary work for the contract
mining. The civil works commenced in
October 2017. “Work on the pollution
control dams (PCDs), workshops, and
the laydown area for the stockpiles
began immediately, and is now almost
complete,” says Freddie Strydom,
contracts director at Stefanutti Stocks.
The contractor also started working on
the open pit and when the mine was
launched towards the end of January,
the company had another two metres
to dig before they hit coal.
The targeted monthly production
when the mine reaches full capacity is
100 000 tons of coal per month. The
project has a life of about six years,
and BRM is currently assessing the
potential of adjacent farms to expand
their mine into a Bronkhorstspruit
complex. “At the moment, we
Peet Meyer, geologist, project manager,
and now general manager at Black Royalty
Minerals’ Chilwavhusiku Colliery.
The contractors started moving material in October last year.
have reached our first coal,” says
Strydom. He adds that there will be
a ramp-up period before the mine
reaches its capacity of 100 000 tons
of coal per month. Stefanutti did
the mine design, the scheduling, the
infrastructure design, and constructed
all the infrastructure facilities.
Stefanutti is also busy with finishing
the platforms for the processing plant.
The plant, located near the open pit,
is close to completion. Thor Crushing
and Screening has been appointed
as the plant contractor. According
to Meyer, it will be a dry plant, as it
will consist of only a crushing and
screening operation.
Dealing with the challenges
“Normally, the big challenge on a mine
like this is the geology. However, the
BRM team invested plenty of time and
capital into additional drilling activities
from the very start of the project and
that ensured the mine was not caught
off guard,” says Strydom. In this way,
Meyer identified a dolerite dyke that
could have been a potential challenge.
“We discovered and identified the dyke
and know exactly where it is situated.
As a result, we could, in time, do
surveys and reschedule the mine layout.
There will now be two box cuts: one
south of the dyke and one north of the
dyke. Our challenge is to manage this
dyke and plan our mining around it,”
says Meyer.
Another challenge for the mining
team is the proximity to neighbouring