Focus on fully mechanised systems rather than retrofits, advises consultant
South Africa’s platinum mining sector would benefit more from implementing fully mechanised systems than from retrofitting existing systems or making use of hybrid systems, Tomahee Consulting senior consultant Alastair Macfar-lane said last week.
Speaking at the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s Mine Planning School conference, in Johannesburg, he pointed out that, even before the crippling five-month strike, South Africa’s platinum industry was 40% unprofitable and, therefore, something had to be done to revitalise the sector.
To effectively deal with the challenges faced, Macfarlane suggested that planning, in the near term, had to be less strategic and more operationally focused.
Planning also had to focus on cash flow generation in the short- and medium term.
Macfarlane added that it would be important for platinum mining companies to look at the economics to determine the true impact of the platinum industry strike, adding that any future decisions had to be based on sound economics and those decisions had to focus on optimising a company’s mineral asset portfolio.
“Then we need to look at and answer the question about where we are going with mechanisation,” he stated, emphasising that one size did not fit all.
Retrofitting is not a good idea. We need to look at global best practice and bring that into our greenfield operations,” Macfarlane said, explaining that retrofitting or hybrid systems – which were what was mostly being implemented in South Africa at the moment – were not ideal, as they had too many constraints, with only marginal opportunities for improving the systems.
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