TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The installation of conveyor belt infrastructure to a new surface access adit at South Africa-focused thermal and metallurgical coal producer Buffalo Coal's Magdalena underground mine, in KwaZulu-Natal, has progressed well and is expected to be complete this month.
The TSX- and JSE-listed miner advised shareholders on Friday that it had been forced to accelerate the planned relocation of a portion of the conveyor infrastructure at Magdalena, owing to the fall-of-ground incident at the mine announced on August 4.
Buffalo Coal said in its statement that the incident, in which no one was hurt, had resulted in the partial loss of raw coal production, which was expected to last less than two weeks.
The other sections at Magdalena continued to produce coal to plan and, as a result of good production over the past two months, the company had enough stock available to service customers during the short period of reduced output.
The fall-of-ground occurred in a worked-out area of the mine that was being used as an accessway for conveying coal to surface from two of the four underground production sections.
The recently built adit, designed to significantly shorten the underground infrastructure to surface, had been used to transport work crews to these two underground sections for several months.
Buffalo had in May stated that, given its precarious financial position, restructuring was necessary to cover operational cash flow shortfalls, thereby ensuring that the company remained sustainable in the future. A consultation process with organised labour and relevant stakeholders continued.