https://www.miningweekly.com
Africa|Building|Cable|Coal|Diamonds|Energy|Engineering|engineering news|Eskom|Gas|generation|Mining|Power|Projects|Renewable Energy|Renewable-Energy|Road|supply-chain|Technology|Transformers|Underground|Equipment|Maintenance|Cables
Africa|Building|Cable|Coal|Diamonds|Energy|Engineering|engineering news|Eskom|Gas|generation|Mining|Power|Projects|Renewable Energy|Renewable-Energy|Road|supply-chain|Technology|Transformers|Underground|Equipment|Maintenance|Cables
africa|building|cable|coal|diamonds|energy|engineering|engineering-news|eskom|gas|generation|mining|power|projects|renewable-energy|renewable-energy-company|road|supply chain|technology|transformers|underground|equipment|maintenance|cables

On-The-Air (15/05/2015)

safm15may2015

15th May 2015

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

Font size: - +

Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: South Africa’s famous Cullinan diamond mine is about to receive a massive new cash injection.

Creamer: It is a 110-year-old mine and they are still planning to put another R1.6-billion in to it. So, it shows you the legs that diamonds have. This mine, of course, is famous, because this is where the biggest white diamond ever was found, at over 3 100 carats. Part of that diamond now forms the crown jewels.

The great Star of Africa is in the crown jewels and another part of it in the sceptre in the United Kingdom and it is still producing big diamonds. That is part of the reasons why the current owners, Petra Diamonds, listed in London, want to raise this capital. They are raising billions at the moment and R1.6-billion of that will go into a new plant for Cullinan, because they realise that these big diamonds are so valuable that you must treat them gently.

They have got a 68-year-old plant there that uses old technology and it is high maintenance. It also doesn’t look after these big stones the way it should. So it is going to put in a new autogenous mill to make sure that they are very sensitive and keep the big magnitude that Cullinan is well known for. Of course, down the road in Limpopo we have an expansion of another mine, that is the Venetia Mine, where Anglo American is putting R20-billion to go underground there.

That will increase the life of that mine by another half century. So, although there are a few problems downstream in the diamond industry at the moment, lack of finance in the supply chain when it comes to polishing, which is holding up the industry a bit. You can see on the mining side people are preparing for a strong future in diamonds.

Kamwendo: Momentum is finally building up for the large-scale supply of electricity by private-sector power producers.

Creamer: The emphasis is private-sector power producers, which is non-Eskom State generation. We have been trying to hasten this for some time and, of course, the big concentration for the Department of Energy has been around renewable energy, sun and wind. At last now the department has come out with a roadmap for bigger participation.

That initial wind and sun producers has already produced investment of R168-billion, which is underway, with 79 projects coming through and potential 5 000 MW of power. They are going to expand that, as well with another 6 300 MW of sun, wind and renewable energy. But, importantly they brought in the guidelines for coal and by mid-year we should have the bids in and by the end of the year bid accepted for coal, which will give us another 2 500 MW in 600 MW batches.

Then gas, they want to extract about 3 000 MW from that. Standing there, ready to just be harvested, is co-generation and they have also got a roadmap for that. They want at least 800 MW but I’m sure they can get much more because we know just down the road we would have had a closure of a ferro-manganese plant Metalloys, which is going to be South32 now, because BHP Billiton spun-out that South32 last week. We know have this situation where co-generation has saved all those jobs, because far sighted company owners realised that Eskom’s power is going to get more expensive.

They have got the heat and gas, why not harvest that and make sure you get your own power. They are generating 25% of their own power through co-generation and that is keeping that ferro-manganese plant going. We see where it hasn’t been done, in Machadodorp, they have closed that.

It is important for private-sector to get the go-ahead, particularly for co-generation and also for demand reduction. That is low-hanging fruit – incentivising the use of less electricity. There is so much equipment available to enable you to use less. It is virtually like building a new power station.

Kamwendo: Microdotting technology has helped the police to recover more than 14 000 stolen vehicles.

Creamer: It is now compulsory. Every new vehicle coming out of the production line in South Africa has to be microdotted. We know that means spraying 10 000 dots onto a vehicle in at least 67 different parts, but often up to 88 different parts of the vehicle.

These are tiny little dots, not even a pin-prick size, smaller than a grain of salt, but they contain 17 digits that can identify the owner and give you the vehicle identification number. People have said that these cars get pulled apart, how is this going to help in a chop-shop or anything like that?

They showed them by actually putting an explosive device into one of the cars and blew the car up and you could still find the identification through their ultra-violet means. The police have now found that just from one company is reporting that 14 200 stolen vehicles have been recovered.

That is something like 57%, our normal average of recovery before microdotting was about 30% recovery in very difficult circumstances. Now, up to 57% being recovered through this technology. They are now wanting to expand to other areas, not only vehicles. The report is that City Power in Johannesburg is now microdotting all its transformers. There are steps to try and get a microdot threading procedure into cables with a lot of cable theft.

Often when the police want to apprehend someone the people say they have just picked up the cable it was lying there, you can’t prove it was stolen. If it actually had an identity number of the owner in it, it would be a different story. They are trying to thread these microdots. I don’t know how far they got with that, so that you can also positively identify where the cable has come from.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.

 

 

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

Showroom

Booyco Electronics
Booyco Electronics

Booyco Electronics, South African pioneer of Proximity Detection Systems, offers safety solutions for underground and surface mining, quarrying,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Rentech
Rentech

Rentech provides renewable energy products and services to the local and selected African markets. Supplying inverters, lithium and lead-acid...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Hyphen, Eva mine, ferrochrome price make headlines
Hyphen, Eva mine, ferrochrome price make headlines
27th March 2024
Resources Watch
Resources Watch
27th March 2024

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.113 0.15s - 101pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now