JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Iron-ore miner Kumba Iron Ore’s Kolomela mine, in Postmasburg, Northern Cape, set a new single blast record on Monday, freeing two-million tonnes of waste material for removal.
The miner had set off 940 t of explosives in a timed sequence over 3.6 seconds, covering 4.6 ha.
The miner said the blast, in the Kapstevel operational area, took place under strict safety supervision.
An average single blast at the mine produced about 400 000 t of material, with the previous biggest blast having produced 1.6-million tonnes.
“This blast contributes towards our targets set in our mine execution plan and to our good production performance for the mine,” Kolomela GM Aart van den Brink said.
Kolomela stated that staking for the blast started on June 12 and took just over seven hours to complete, followed by the drilling of 2 542 holes to an average depth of 17.45 m. The charging of the holes started on June 20.