Name: Beeshoek mine.
Location: The Beeshoek mine is located in Postmasburg, in South Africa’s Northern Cape.
Holding and Controlling Company: Assmang, a joint venture between Assore and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM).
Brief Description: Beeshoek is an iron-ore mine where mining operations are outsourced in some core and noncore activities to allow for a greater focus on operational issues and productivity-related projects. Beeshoek mine is now mainly responsible for supplying iron-ore to the local South African market, with small volumes being exported.
Brief History: The iron-ore mine was established in 1964 and a full washing and screening plant was installed in 1975.
A jig plant to beneficiate off-grade ore was completed in 2001.
Assmang commissioned a new opencast mine, Beeshoek South, in 1999. The combined resources of Beeshoek North and South–five opencast pits with supporting infrastructure–were needed to produce yealy iron-ore output.
By the early 2000s, this output regularly exceeded six-million tonnes a year.
Products: Iron-ore.
Geology/Mineralisation: The deposits at Beeshoek are resistant to weathering and form part of the more prominent topographical features of the Gamagara Hills, located between Postmasburg in the south and Sishen in the north.
The deposits are situated in the Maramane dome, which is defined by carbonate rocks of the Campbellrand subgroup. The lower-most unit of the Manganore iron formation recognised at Beeshoek consists of spotted carbonaceous and dark-brown shale containing chert pillows and hematite nodules.
Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at June 30, 2016, were estimated at 46.79-million tonnes grading at 64.67% iron.
Stockpiles at June 30, 2016, were estimated at 6.06-million tonnes grading at 55.15% iron.
Resources: Total resources as at June 30, 2016, were estimated at 107.71-million tonnes grading at 64.06% iron.
Mining Method: Openpit.
Major Infrastructure and Equipment: After the ore is mined and blended in the pits, it is loaded onto dump trucks and transported to the primary crushers. The ore is stacked onto a longitudinal blending bed that serves as a buffer between the mining and ore preparation plant.
The ore is transported by conveyor to a scalping screen, where oversised rock is separated and transferred into a secondary crusher.
Prospects: First ore was extracted successfully from the Beeshoek Village pit in April 2016 and conforms to the quality specifications derived from geological drilling work.
The Village pit will extend the life-of-mine for Beeshoek from two to 12 years at a sustainable production rate of three-million tonnes a year.
The mining schedules for Village Pit are continuously under review to align the mining programme to the production output of three-million tonnes a year planned for the mine, but also to ensure that the Village pit is exploited as economically as possible by minimising waste stripping rates while ensuring that the product qualities can be sustained.
Contact: Assore Finance manager Ross Davies and ARM Corporate office
Contact Details:
Assore
Tel +27 11 770 6815
Email http://rossdavies@assore.com
Website http://www.assore.com/
ARM
Tel +27 11 779 1300
Email mailto:ir.admin@arm.co.za
Website http://www.arm.co.za/