The Syama underground mine will be the world’s
first purpose-built, fully automated, sublevel cave
gold mine in the world.
State of underground technology
Van Niekerk says that although there is a big
push for mines to become more automated,
with better safety controls in place, they still
seem to be cost sensitive and lack the backbone
infrastructure to run most of these new
systems. Despite this, Van Niekerk believes
that the industry is willing to implement new
products and technologies underground.
Using Australia as an example, he says that
mines in the country are ahead in terms of
implementing up-to-date technology in their
operations. “A majority of our larger clients
that focus on this type of equipment and
infrastructure, are actually from Australia,”
he says.
South Africa is slowly following suit;
however, there are several challenges that still
BME’s Xplolog is a fully integrated and real-time
blast data management system.
helping to make mines safer and hence, more
productive,” he said.
MineARC business development
manager for greater Africa, Jason van
Niekerk, mentions that there seems to be
enough R&D into underground mining
technology. “MineARC places a large focus
and allocation of engineering resources into
research and development,” he says.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR) is another institution
involved in R&D for mining technology.
Commenting on the CSIR’s role in
supporting the South African mining
industry, CSIR principal researcher, Dr
Dave Roberts, says that the organisation
was identified as a primary research provider
to the Mine Health and Safety Council
(MHSC) Centre of Excellence.
Mining in focus
The automation drive at Syama will reduce the number of personnel needed.
[32] MINING MIRROR MAY 2019
The ‘Monster’ robot aims to assess and identify
risks for underground mines.
www.miningmirror.co.za