Given that THE way the world mines has to change for safety and productivity reasons, South Africa’s universities are preparing students for the mines of the future. A month ago, the University of Pretoria opened a new virtual and augmented reality mine design centre and, for some several years now, the University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits’) School of Mining Engineering has been blazing a modern mine-design trail. Read on page of 20 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the Wits school’s forecast that, regardless of the mining methods applied, future mines will be digital. Technologies under development that have potential roles in the ‘future mine’ include underground communication systems that allow for real-time intervention to manage all risks. The ultimate aim is to do the fundamental research required for smart underground monitoring stations, including sidewall-mounted measurement stations that meet the accuracy needed for mine surveying, mapping and environmental monitoring.

South Africa produces more than 260-million tons of coal a year, of which 130-million tons is used to generate electricity, 40-million tons to produce liquid transport fuels and chemicals and more than 70- million tons exported. Against that background, read on page 18 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the comments of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research researcher Johan de Korte that it is imperative for 60-billion tons of recoverable coal reserves to be optimally managed in order to ensure that South Africa is able to reap the optimum reward, given that coal is set to remain this country’s primary power generation fuel for the foreseeable future. The new Medupi and Kusile coal-fired power stations will require an additional 30-million tons a year and Sasol an ongoing 40-million tons a year, which behoves the country’s coal miners, traders and government authorities to collaborate in balancing domestic needs with foreign- exchange-earning export opportunities.

Cabinet has granted State port company Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) a permanent licence to operate a manganese terminal at the Port of Ngqura. Read on page 24 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the official thumbs-up finally being given for the age-old manganese terminal at the Port Elizabeth harbour to be relocated by 2018/19 to Ngqura, which is gearing up to handle an anticipated throughput demand of 16-million tons a year by 2020. TPT, which has been operating the Ngqura’s container terminal since its inception, will now have to see to new bulk materials handling infrastructure at the manganese terminal that will include stackers, reclaimers and surge bins along with a train marshalling yard and tippler. Engineering designs for the Ngqura Manganese Export Terminal are due by November this year and construction completed by the end of 2018.

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, believes that demand from China will be stronger in the second half of this year than it was in the first half. Read on page 8 of this edition of Mining Weekly of BHP Billiton expecting to benefit from greater demand from pig iron, for which it supplies iron-ore and metallurgical coal. This expected sweet spot for pig iron is ironically linked to the LSE-, ASX- and JSE-listed company’s reduced Chinese steel production forecast of between 935-million tonnes and 985-million tonnes a year.