Northam Platinum’s Booysendal mine, in Limpopo, recently accessed the Booysendal South ore deposit as part of the expansion of mining capacity at the Booysendal concession, which required the mine to employ an alternative conveyor system to extract ore.
In September, Austria-headquartered ropeways manufacturer Doppelmayr Transport Technology was awarded the contract to build a RopeCon system to transport the mined ore to the processing plant.
The mine’s difficult topography makes it necessary to employ a unique conveyor system, which runs on ropes, to transport the ore to an existing processing plant.
The RopeCon system proved to be the ideal solution to transport almost 500 000 t of material a month safely and easily over a distance of about 4.9 km and a difference in elevation of 530 m.
The conveyor is expected to be in operation by the end of 2018.