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Mintails spends R1.5bn on mine closures, budgets R85m for next 20 years

MARK BRUNE There are about 5.5-billion tons of gold mine tailings spread over Johannesburg’s goldfields

Photo by Duane Daws

REHABILITATION Mintails aims to process about six-million tons a year of slime, sand and hard rock

Photo by Duane Daws

11th April 2014

By: Chantelle Kotze

  

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South Africa-focused tailings extractor Mintails has to date invested R1.5-billion in its mine closure operations and expects to spend an additional R85-million on closure costs by the time it ceases its planned operation in 20 years.

During a site visit earlier this month to its operations on the West Rand of the Witwatersrand basin, near Krugersdorp, Mintails chairperson Mark Brune told the media that there were about 5.5-billion tons of gold mine tailings spread over Johannesburg’s goldfields, from the Western basin to the Central and Eastern basins.

Mintails, he noted, aimed to process about six-million tons of slime a year, sand and hard rock.

The ASX-listed company currently has access to more than 200-million tons of slime and tailings on the West Rand – one-million tons of tailings in the Randfontein cluster of surface dumps and a further 106-million tons of tailings resources at its Soweto cluster, which it historically acquired from DRDGold.

The mine dumps, which are a source of dust and water pollution and
leak contaminants into groundwater, are increasingly ‘interfacing’ with the urbanisation of Johannesburg.

“With seven-million people expected to migrate to Johannesburg over the next seven years, the management of this interface becomes an issue,” highlighted Mintails operations GM Jan Jacobs at the site visit.

The rehabilitation of Mintails’ associated footprints will also release land that can be used for much-needed development in Gauteng.

The company rehabilitates mining areas using the closure-mining model, which engages a wide group of stakeholders in an attempt to extend the life of the gold mining industry to facilitate a smooth transition from mining to the postmining economy. The aim is to subsequently ensure that there is a rehabilitated environment, with higher-value economic use of the land than the current environment in which the company operates.

Mintails is, therefore, developing a single solution on the West Rand for multiple tailings facilities by mining historical tailings and depositioning these into a single deposition facility – the West Wits pit – which is identified for permanent closure.

The West Wits pit has a 30-million-ton capacity up to ground level and will meet Mintails’ deposition requirements for at least the next five years.

The company envisions the transformation of these tailings dumps into alternative-energy platforms, either for solar or wind farms, which are capable of generating revenues to pay for the sustainable rehabilitation of mining landscapes.

Establishing a wind farm on top of the rehabilitated West Wits pit is being considered. The technical viability of such an approach is currently at the prefeasibility level – preliminary technical work has been initiated to investigate the viability of such a green solution.

Jacobs emphasised that mining the gold tailings provided an opportunity to rehabilitate and remedy the environmental impact of the unrehabilitated, decommissioned mines in Gauteng. He noted that the removal of the dumps, and the associated rehabilitation of the footprints, would help remedy the radiation pollution on the West Rand.

The removal of these dumps will also decrease dust pollution and the pollution of water resources on the surface and underground.

A challenge associated with unrehabilitated and decommissioned mines is the natural development of unsafe sinkholes that become access points for illegal mining.

Further, mine dumps require constant and costly maintenance and management until a permanent resolution has been identified, as the dumps tend to break down and spill over into the environment.

Old and abandoned infrastructure also needed to be dealt with, Jacobs said, highlighting the importance of finding a permanent solution to legacy issues because “if they go unaddressed, we will once again be handing this issue down from one generation to the next”.

He noted that three criteria that had to be met to ensure the long-term sustainability of mine closure and rehabilitation.

“One needs to address the criterium of economic returns, in the form of jobs; social returns, in the form of gainful employment and skills; and environmental returns, in the form of water and land reform.”

A collaborative approach among society, professional-support role-players and regulators, as well as national government, needed to be fostered to produce rehabilitated landscapes that were fit for purpose to mitigate all legacy issues and remove any constraints to future socioeconomic development.

The landscapes also have to be functional ecosystems, capable of supporting a diverse enough range of biological life.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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