PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Southern Africa-focused coal developer Universal Coal said on Tuesday that it was on track to reach maiden production at its flagship Kangala coal mine, in the Witbank region, by February next year.
Cold commissioning of the Kangala colliery’s crushing and screening plant has started, with assembly well under way.
Hot commissioning of the plant was due to start in December this year.
The Kangala mine would be Universal’s first coal mine, producing 2.1-million tonnes a year of thermal coal, with two-million tonnes a year already allocated to the South Africa’s State electricity producer, Eskom.
Universal stated that the box-cut, which started in the first week of July, remained on schedule, and the first run-of-mine coal scheduled from the pit would be used for the base of the product stockpiles, preventing contamination at a later stage, while the remaining box-cut coal would be used to commission the crushing and screening plant.