Thermal coal producer Keaton Energy’s greenfield Moabsvelden coal project, east of Delmas, in Mpumalanga, remains a short-term growth priority.

“The Moabsvelden project is . . . [waiting[ in the wings,” CEO Mandi Glad said in a conference call on the company’s results for the six months ended September 30.

The start of construction of Moabsvelden, an expansion of the company’s Vanggatfontein colliery, awaits the grant of an integrated water-use licence and the conclusion of a coal supply agreement with State-owned power utility Eskom, Keaton states.

During its 2015 financial year, the company completed an independent project implementation report for Moabsvelden and started surface acquisition, which is nearing completion.

Planned products from the project include a primary washed thermal product, No 5 Seam metallurgical product and fine-coal filter cake.

Moabsvelden, which has a 16-year life-of-mine, has an estimated coal reserve of 39.8-million tons, with a coal resource of 54.7-million tons from seams 5, 4, 2 and 1 of the Witbank coalfield.

Meanwhile, capital investment at the Vanggatfontein colliery amounted to more than R220-million for the first half of the 2015 financial year, which was primarily spent on ongoing mine development pertaining to stripping costs and the completion of the filter press plant.

Vanggatfontein is a contractor-operated opencast mine and delivers run-of-mine (RoM) coal from seams 5, 2 and 4 to two coal handling and processing plants (CHPPs) – a 100 t/h No 5 Seam plant and a 500 t/h 2 and 4 Seam plant.

The plants are owned by Keaton Mining, but operated by a specialist contractor. Products from seams 2 and 4 are trucked and/or railed to Eskom and Seam 5 product is trucked to various domestic metallurgical customers.

“Construction of the R41.5-million filter press plant began and progressed well in the financial year, with R34.8-million spent,” Keaton notes on its website.

The plant was commissioned in June and the project was completed on schedule and within budget. “The plant eliminates wet slurry production from the two CHPPs and dramatically improves water recovery from the tailings stream. The plant also eliminates the need for a new codisposal facility, which adds to the company’s efforts to reduce its environmental impact,” Keaton states.

Glad highlights that safety remains a management focus area and that Keaton continues to strive for a zero-harm environment at all operations.

Quarterly safety statistics show that Vanggatfontein reported a progressive rolling lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) for 200 000 hours worked of 0.38 in the second quarter of the 2016 financial year, compared with a LTIFR of 0.37 in the first quarter of the financial year.

Performance
Vanggatfontein is performing according to plan, with the mine delivering 1.19-million tons of washed thermal coal from seams 2 and 4 to Eskom.

Mining Weekly reported last month that sales of No 5 Seam metallurgical coal decreased 14% on the comparable period to 56 156 t, which was in line with the geological model.

Further, Vanggatfontein gene-rated revenue of R453.5-million from coal sales in the six months to September 30, while transport revenue narrowed year-on-year, from R173.2-million to R109.8-million, as a result of shorter delivery distances.

KZN Assets
Keaton continues its focus on concluding the disposal of its KwaZulu-Natal assets, which include the Vaalkrantz colliery and associated Balgray and Koudelager projects.

The Balgray project is located north-east of Utrecht. The project’s prefeasibility exploration will start with the awarding of a mining right. Keaton notes on its website that the 2015 financial year highlights for the project include the mining right application response document, including mitigating measures to deal with impacts of ground and surface water, as well as ecotourism and local community- support initiatives being submitted to the Department of Mineral Resources in December 2014.

The outcome of these proceses will provide the terms on which the mining right will be awarded.

An underground scoop bord-and-pillar mining method is suggested for Balgray on the 1.3-m-thick Gus seam, while its infrastructure will comprise a satellite underground adit, with the RoM proposed to be hauled to Vaalkrantz through the existing Vaalkrantz CHPP.

The Koudelager project, east of Vryheid, will use a similar mining method and infrastructure, and is in the prefeasibility exploration stage, according to Keaton’s website.