Mine excursion
The contractor has deployed on site and is currently in
the process of constructing the major infrastructure.
holds a lot of promise. The two-phased
project has a combined coal resource of
180Mt and the expected life of mine is
36 years. Some of the other projects that
Canyon Coal is targeting are Witfontein
(resource of 69.3Mt), De Wittekrans
(resource of 118Mt), and Springfield
(resource of 307Mt). Most of the coal
produced by Canyon will be exported.
Third coal mine in
Bronkhorstspruit
Khanye is adjacent to the new
Chilwavhusiku coal mine brought into
production earlier this year by new
junior miner Black Royalty Minerals.
According to Alan Mabbett, general
manager at Phalanndwa Colliery, the
coal seams in the Bronkhorstspruit
area have distinctive characteristics,
totally different from the seams
typically found in the Witbank
coalfields. Mining is still new in
[12] MINING MIRROR MAY 2018
Bronkhorstspruit, and Khanye is only
the third mine to start operating in the
area, while Khanye and Chilwavhusiku
are now the only two operating coal
mines in Gauteng. The other coal
operation close to Bronkhorstspruit
is the Palesa thermal coal mine, also
known as Loopspruit, owned by
private entity Hosken Consolidated
Investments. Palesa, however, falls
within the boundaries of the province
of Mpumalanga.
“The geology between the
Bronkhorstspruit operations and
those in the Delmas, Middelburg, and
eMalahleni regions differs substantially.
Even the terminology is different. At
Khanye, the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 seams so
typical of the Witbank coalfield are not
as pronounced, and we only mine three
seams (1, 2, and 3 seams, in Witbank
geological terms). The coal is also of
a different quality,” says Mabbett.
Transporting the sellable
product
Coal from Khanye will be railed for
export to Richards Bay Coal Terminal
(RBCT) on the east coast of South
Africa. There is a rail siding about 6.5km
from site but, according to Mabbett, the
company needs to undertake earthworks
and upgrades to get the siding up and
running again. A coal mining company
ideally should have access to a siding
within at least a 50km radius from site.
This reduces transport costs significantly.
Canyon Coal has a Quattro allocation
of 175 000 tonnes at RBCT, a dry bulk
terminal allocation of 750 000 tonnes,
another at ‘South Dunes’ of 700 000
tonnes, and an additional emerging
miner’s allocation of one million
tonnes, which gives Canyon Coal a
total coal allocation of more than 2.6
million tonnes per annum at RBCT.
An allocation of 2.6 million tonnes at