Mine excursion
Water kept seeping through the road rockfill into the culvert exaction.
Leeuwpan
roars again
Access to new coal
reserves has ensured
that Exxaro will mine from
its Leeuwpan Coal Mine
in Mpumalanga for at
least another 10 years.
Edited by Leon Louw
[14] MINING MIRROR MARCH 2019
L
eeuwpan, Exxaro’s 3.65 million
tonnes per annum (Mtpa) coal
operation near Delmas, was until
recently at risk of running out of
coal. However, within a few months, the mine
gained access to new coal reserves, which
added another 10 years to the initial life
of mine. “Leeuwpan needed to develop an
area where it could mine another 5.1Mtpa,”
explains Mervin Govender, Exxaro group
projects manager.
A national road — the R50 — crossed
the identified area and another private access
road, the Thaba Chueu Mine (TCM) road
servicing the nearby silica mine, was also
affected. Both roads needed to be redirected
in parts for Leeuwpan to reach the new
mining area.
It was a race against time. “A project like this
would normally take 14 months, but Exxaro
needed it completed in eight months to avoid
the mine closing in 2019,” says Govender.
The project team went one step further
and completed it two months ahead of a
fast-tracked schedule. The R50 and TCM
roads were handed over to Exxaro at the
end of August and opened to the public on
28 September. As testimony to the quality
of work despite extreme time pressures, the
Department of Public Works, Roads and
Transport signed off the road without any
amendments — the first time ever that
a public road has been completed to the
Department’s complete satisfaction.
“The successful completion of the
construction of the R50 deviation and
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