Industry intelligence
Contract awarded for Palabora ventilation shaft
A surface head gear and winder installation
will then be constructed from January to
March 2020. This will facilitate the slow sink
to 200m and the main sink until February
2022. Canadian shutter and lining methods
will be employed. The team is expected to
conduct shaft stripping by mid-April 2022 and
to disestablish the site by the end of May 2022.
“There will be no stations or other
excavations required, so this will help keep
the team in a sinking cycle and optimise
production levels,” says Blom. “We will run
full calendar operations (Fulco) with 12-hour
shifts and cycles of five-day shifts, five-night
shifts and five shifts off,” he adds.
Sitatunga gets approval to
mine manganese Wits global standing boosted
Sitatunga Resources has been granted
authorisation to start building its first
manganese mine in the Northern Cape
this year. Sitatunga is a subsidiary of
Menar, an investment company with
mostly coal assets. Sitatunga announced
late last year that it had acquired the
East Manganese project from Southern
Ambition.
On signing of the sale agreement,
the project did not have the necessary
statutory approvals to lawfully commence
with mining activities. Following public
consultations, the final environmental
impact assessment reports were submitted
to the Department of Mineral Resources
in December 2018.
Menar’s managing director, Vuslat
Bayoglu, said the imminent start of
operations at its first manganese asset
was an indication that the investment
company’s strategy was bearing fruit.
The global standing of the School of Mining
Engineering at Wits University has been
boosted by another step up in the QS World
University Rankings — to 13th place in 2019.
Last year, the school had also moved
upwards in these rankings, reaching the
number 15 spot from its 22nd place in 2017.
The latest achievement allows it to retain its
position as the highest ranked school at Wits
University; it is also the only mining school on
the African continent to feature in the top 50
mining schools worldwide.
“This QS ranking means that as a school,
we provide an internationally competitive
mining engineering curriculum,” says
Professor Cuthbert Musingwini, head of
school. “This is based on the work of our high-
quality academics who produce impactful
research, and our graduates who enter their
careers with skills relevant to the mines of the
future,” he says.
The QS World University Rankings use
six performance indicators with different
weighting to assess universities. The most
A small labour force of 123 people is planned
for steady main sinking conditions, with some
subcontractors conducting surface piling and
civil works for the winder, head gear, and other
site construction. Shaft drilling itself will be
done with two twin-boom Komatsu shaft drill
rigs and mucking by a Komatsu excavator with
close to a ton of loading capacity.
Blom says that ground conditions could
be a challenge in some areas, as profiled from
the cover and core drilling. “However, we
have various ways of reducing the risk and
downtime during these intersections — such
as keeping the shaft lining as close as possible
to the shaft bottom,” Blom concludes.
Contractor Murray & Roberts Cementation
has been awarded a contract by Palabora
Mining Company for a 1 200m-deep
ventilation shaft.
The shaft, with a lined diameter of 8.5m,
will reach a final blind sink depth of 1 190m
before a drop raise takes it to its final depth.
According to Braam Blom, project executive
at Murray & Roberts Cementation, the project
will take about three years to complete. “After
mobilisation, site establishment, and surface
civils have been completed, we expect to
conduct pre-sinking until the end of 2019,
with the use of our special shaft sinking gantry
to a shaft depth of 65m,” says Blom.
Professor Cuthbert Musingwini, head of the School
of Mining Engineers at Wits.
important indicators are academic reputation,
student-to-faculty ratio and research citations
per faculty member — followed by employer
reputation, proportion of international faculty,
and proportion of international students.
Looking after surface miners’ rights
Nico Pienaar, director at Aspasa.
[4] MINING MIRROR MAY 2019
Surface miners are facing a growing
number of challenges, prompting the
surface mining association to again
appeal to mine owners to get behind the
association and become part of a unified
voice for the industry.
Aspasa director, Nico Pienaar, says
technological advances are at the
forefront of innovation, especially
in transport with trackless mobile
machinery (TMM), proximity
detection systems (PDS), and
regulations relating to road transport
in general. “New members will be
brought up to speed on trackless mobile
machines regarding risk assessment, the
implementation of effective controls
and traffic management, and collision
avoidance technology requirements,”
says Pienaar.
Pienaar adds that proper risk assessments
and traffic management plans (which
should actually already be in place)
outweigh the cost of section 54
stoppages. “Fitting PDS are not yet fully
functional, but several systems are being
tested by Aspasa and suppliers to stay
up to date with latest technology,” says
Pienaar.
Aspasa also helps members
technically, in terms of the quality of the
aggregate mined and the final product
sold, as well as information related to
the production process. “In essence, a
mine should have a quality management
programme in place, which can be
audited regularly. Aspasa has developed
such a programme with links to relevant
methods, standards, and specifications,”
Pienaar concludes.
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