Airships may replace winter roads at Chidliak

70% of rough diamonds sold to local beneficiators

CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – De Beers Group Managed Operations MD responsible for South Africa and Canada, Nompumelelo (Mpumi) Zikalala, spoke to Mining Weekly this week about the highlights and one lowlight of her first nine months in office.

Zikalala, who has replaced two long-serving CEOs, cited these highlights in a wide-ranging interview at the 2020 Investing in African Mining Indaba:

• visiting all the operations with her “amazing team”, which has succeeded in unlocking synergies not only within managed operations but also within the greater De Beers Group as well;
• launching De Beers Group’s new ‘Make Life Brilliant’ purpose, which sets out to extend the brilliance of diamonds to employees, communities, shareholders, customers and consumers. “That, for me, has been a huge highlight,” she said; and
• signing the ‘Building Forever’ sustainable mining plan for Venetia, which has four pillars – protecting the natural world, partnering for thriving communities, standing with women and girls, and leading ethical practices across the diamond industry.

The single lowlight was lost time injuries (LTIs). “We did have a couple of lost time injuries and that for me is a key area of focus because we do want to get to triple zero – zero first aid cases, zero LTIs and zero medical cases,” said Zikalala.

In the ambit of the managed operations are Venetia Mine and De Beers Marine in South Africa and the joint venture Gahcho Kué Mine in Canada. Managed Operations works closely with the De Beers Group technical and sustainability business function, which includes the development of the Chidliak project in the Arctic region, and closure of the Voorspoed Mine in South Africa and Snap Lake and Victor Mine in Canada.

Already noted by the teams working together are De Beers Marine’s excellence in maintenance and research and development, Gahcho Kué’s plant leadership – “it’s one of the best plants that I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing” – and Venetia’s exceptionally good opencast performance.

“If I look, for example, at our shovel performance at Venetia, we’re in a very good space,” Zikalala commented.

"But the FutureSmart Mining programme that we are implementing as the Anglo American group, we are already highlighting future benchmarks.

“It’s about understanding how we want to build and operate future mines as well,” she said.

"The entire executive committee team, as well as general managers, is taking part in our operational roadshows, focused on bringing together our managed operations teams in South Africa and Canada.

“Our Venetia mine general manager and our De Beers Marine SA general manager joined us. We went to Gahcho Kué, spent a couple of days at camp, and engaged our teams around our key focus areas for the next couple of years.

“Subsequent to that, we went to our Calgary office and Venetia, where we have the opportunity to build a best-in-class underground mine, where we will essentially have a look at how far we can stretch things towards full automation,” said Zikalala.

As pilots at various operations prove successful, they are applied across the rest of the business, with the self-generation of green energy a hot topic.

A close eye is also being kept on Anglo American’s decision to launch the world’s biggest hydrogen fuel cell haul truck at the Mogalakwena platinum group metals mine in Limpopo.

“As part of the broader Anglo American group, we’re excited about the work taking place at Mogalakwena, and we’re watching it very closely."

De Beers Group also had a meeting with the Minister of Trade from Canada at the Mining Indaba at which the generation of green energy was discussed.

“In the discussions, we let it be known that our entire group is currently looking at green energy,” she said.

RE-IMAGINING MINE CLOSURE

Mine closure, another hot environmental and sustainability topic, is being re-imagined to see how, through mine closure, we can ensure that local communities benefit through socioeconmic initiatives.

“When you’re tasked with closing three mines, you not only have the benefit of comparing the three, but also thinking out of the box around how closure should be driven. It’s a great work in progress because as you re-imagine, you come up with fantastic ideas,” said Zikalala.

Meanwhile, Chidliak, located on Canada’s Baffin Island, is being shaped as a mine of the future.

“We’ve been working on what we call the Arctic Fox Project. This is a project that is essentially looking at how we want to design and operate our future mines.

“So, it’s been looking at all the work we’ve been doing around FutureSmart Mining and saying, well, what should our future mines look like. They will occupy a smaller footprint and use less water and less power.

“All the work we’ve been doing around tech and innovation will be packaged into Chidliak, including how it will be closed.”

AIRSHIPS INSTEAD OF WINTER ROADS

As is traditional in Canada, operators build winter roads to transport the bulk of supplies to various mines.

“But with Chidliak, we’re saying let’s partner with the companies that develop large airships, and have a look at whether, when we operate Chidliak, we can actually utilise airships instead of building winter roads.

“I’ve just given you an example of a logistics possibility, but lots of exciting work is being done from mining, plant and social perspectives,” she said.

"The airships, if adopted, may also be utilised for the benefit of our host communities."

SALE OF ROUGH IN SOUTH AFRICA

Last year, De Beers Group in South Africa sold over 70% of its total gross sales of rough diamonds to local beneficiators, 30% more than the 40% required by legislation.

This was because the production profile required by customers, to cut and polish profitably, did not allow the 40% level to be attained and the only way of doing so was through aggregation.

“Our sales model works in a manner where our different countries mine the diamonds, we then aggregate them together, and coming out of that international mix, we then extract what it is that customers in those specific countries would be looking for, driven by profitability,” Zikalala explained.

Through aggregation, customers received what they needed and are best able to run their business sustainably, especially in what was a critical year in the diamonds markets – a year in which more was spent on marketing than has been the case in the last ten years, with the midstream needing diamonds mined to meet specific demand.