JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The world's fourth largest platinum producer, Aquarius Platinum, said on Friday that it had received instruction from the North West principal inspector of mines to reduce all bord widths in its mechanised bord-and-pillar mines.

All mechanised bord-and-pillar mines in the North West region had to revise their mine codes of practice, and reduce bord widths in their shafts from 10 m to 6 m, the miner stated.

The reviewed instruction would affect Aquarius's Marikana and Kroondal operations.

This followed the suspension of operations and inspection at Aquarius' Marikana mine by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), after a rock fall accident that resulted in five fatalities.

The principal inspector of mines now reviewed the codes of practice in the North West province towards the prevention of rockfalls and rockbursts in metalliferous mines and included related mine standards and procedures to cater for more effective safety measures.

It further stated that extraction rations should be limited to 75%, prominent geological feature should be supported by pillars, boxing of roadways must be towards one direction, and that the orientation of leads and lags between headings must almost be aligned for effective ventilation.

The mines inspector warned that all mines employing the bord-and-pillar mining method where bord widths exceeded 6 m should notify the office of their action plans to convert to more safer and conservative mining parameters.

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Thursday that the escalation in mine deaths had necessitated a focus on the current state of safety in the platinum sector and called for quarterly meetings with CEOs of the country's platinum-mining companies to review their safety performance.

Aquarius said that it was assessing the impact of these instructions.

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