JSE-listed platinum mining company Impala Platinum (Implats) has embarked on a strategy to research and develop modern mechanised mining methods and to expand them to all parts of the group.

Implats CEO Terence Goodlace ruled out the perpetuation of current mining methods and promised regular progress reports as the company moved along a more modern mining path.

Already under way was the testing of disc-cutter technology in narrow reefs in collaboration with Anglo American Platinum as well as long-hole stoping in collaboration with the University of Pretoria.

Implats group executive Gerhard Potgieter, who has been tasked with implementing the new strategy, told Mining Weekly that off-reef horizontal development was already mechanised and the first units for off-reef incline development were on order.

But mechanised reef mining remained the big challenge, with the Merensky reef the better mechanisation candidate because of its wider seam and mechanisation of the upper group two (UG2) reef tougher because of its greater narrowness.

Meanwhile, mechanised know-how from Implats’ Zimplats mine, in Zimbabwe, and its Two Rivers mine, in Mpumalanga, had been migrated to bord-and-pillar sections of the Impala Rustenburg mine’s Shaft 12 and Shaft 14, where hybrid mechanisation was under way.

“We’re now having to wait for the new shafts,” said Potgieter, adding that mechanisation would then be introduced from the outset.

Questioned by JPMorgan platinum analyst Steve Shepherd on the prospect of the still-unapproved Shaft 18 project going ahead at Impala Rustenburg, Goodlace said that consideration was being given to re-engineering Shaft 18’s design to accommodate full mechanisation.

“There’s no ways we can perpetuate the way we are currently mining and if we can’t prove that, we can mine Shaft 18 in a more mechanised way,” Goodlace said.

The pressure was on to come up with modern, mechanised mining methods to enable the com- pany to mechanise fully from 2023 onwards, when replacement tonnage would be needed.

On the output outlook from the Impala Rustenburg lease area for the next ten years, Goodlace said that the Impala Rustenburg lease area would yield 850 000 oz a year at best and not the million ounces a year envisaged previously.