Photo by: Diamondcorp
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed DiamondCorp is expecting a ten-fold increase in its capacity to haul ore out from its Lace mine, near Kroonstad, following the installation and commissioning of a 400 t/h underground conveyor belt system.
“Not only does the conveyor belt provide Lace with the ability to increase development rates, the cost of future development will decrease in the absence of the need for trucks for waste hauling, as the underground loaders will now empty their buckets directly onto the end of the conveyor belt, which keeps getting extended as the development goes deeper,” CEO Paul Loudon commented.
He added that until block cave production started, the use of trucks would be confined to hauling kimberlite from the Upper K4 Block production level to the tipping point on the conveyor belt.
The conveyor belt capacity was sized at double the current front-end capacity of the processing plant so that future opportunities for increasing the underground mining rate would not be constrained by an inability to transport ore to surface, as well as providing an ability to handle both kimberlite and development waste.
Meanwhile, DiamondCorp pointed out that the drought conditions in South Africa would not impact kimberlite mining ramp-up, as the additional storage dam capacity built last year would provide sufficient water to process all kimberlite mining for the next 12 months.