With 22 active shaft projects under way globally, construction and engineering group Murray & Roberts’ underground mining platform is ranked the most active shaft sinking group in the world outside China, says Murray & Roberts Cementation business development executive Allan Widlake.
The Murray & Roberts Group has sunk the deepest single-lift shaft in South Africa at Gold Fields’ South Deep mine; the deepest single-lift shaft in the US, at Resolution copper mine, owned by a Rio Tinto and BHP joint venture; and the deepest shaft in Canada, at Glencore’s Kidd base metals mine. The group is also busy sinking what will be the deepest shaft in the US, namely a winze, at the Lucky Friday mine – an underground silver, lead and zinc mine in Idaho, operated by Hecla mining company.
The group’s underground mining platform comprises Murray & Roberts Cementation, based in Johannesburg; Cementation Canada, based in North Bay; Cementation USA, based in Salt Lake City; Cementation Sudamérica, based in Santiago; and RUC Cementation Mining, based in Perth.
The Murray & Roberts Group consists of three additional operating platforms. The new Oil & Gas platform was previously known as Construction Australasia Oil & Gas & Minerals, the Energy & Industrial platform was previously known as Engineering Africa, while the Infrastructure & Building platform was previously known as Construction Africa & the Middle East.
“The underground mining platform will be the main focus at [the Investing in African] Mining Indaba, with the other three platforms participating too, as a large part of their business is exposed to the mining sector. We believe that Mining Indaba 2015 will be the premier event to showcase our total service offering to the mining industry, with synergies across all four operating platforms,” says Widlake.
“We are using both the Australian and Canadian experience in our platform to introduce First World development and shaft sinking expertise to the South African mining industry,” says Widlake. Additional cooperation between South Africa and Australia has involved the establishment of internal joint ventures to bring skills sets together for projects elsewhere in Africa.