Exploration, engineering and environmental geology company Banzi Geotechnics released the eleventh edition of Barker’s Coal Field map of South Africa last month.

The map originates from a study of the coal industry in the early1980s and was originally published for the international market.

“It was compiled using manual cartographic methods when the first edition was published in 1986. The map has gone from strength to strength and the fifth edition, published in 1995, was the first to be entirely compiled and produced using computer-aided techniques and software,” says Banzi Geotechnics managing member Oliver Barker.

He notes that the new edition, which has taken a year of research, highlights important developments within South Africa’s coal landscape, including the emergence of Anglo–Swiss multinational commodities trading and mining company Glencore as a major player in the industry, with its consolidation of several companies, giving it a huge presence in the central coalfields in Mpumulanga, the Gauteng Highveld and KwaZulu-Natal.

“The map also highlights the development of new multiyear mining projects in the Waterberg coalfield, in Limpopo, which is South Africa’s largest remaining coalfield, along with new projects in Limpopo and the Free State, as well as the Molteno coalfield in the Eastern Cape,” Barker comments.

The Waterberg coalfield spans about 85 km from east to west and about 40 km from north to south. It is part of the same formation as the Mmamabula coalfields, in Botswana, and holds about 40% of South Africa’s coal resources.

The Waterberg coalfield has been estimated to hold about 50-billion tons of coal, of which about a quarter could be extracted using opencast mining.

He adds that the new edition features an all-time record of more than 230 projects and mines shared by 41 companies.

“The map remains a standard reference for the industry and is recognised locally and internationally as a comprehensive overview of the South African coal industry,” he says.

Barker emphasises that the importance of the map has also been acknowledged in education, both at school and university level, and is a reference for industry and investors as well as having general public interest.

“The map, showing the coalfields and distribution of Karoo rocks in Southern Africa, as well as the distribution of active coal mines and projects, provides information about the type of coal produced, mining methods and markets that have supplied the collieries in South Africa,” he notes.