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Implats embarks on mechanised mining strategy

3rd March 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – JSE-listed platinum mining company Impala Platinum (Implats) has embarked on a strategy to research and develop modern mechanised mining methods and to expand them to all parts of the group.

Implats CEO Terence Goodlace ruled out the perpetuation of current mining methods and promised regular progress reports as the company moved along a more modern mining path.

Already under way was the testing of disc-cutter technology in narrow reefs in collaboration with Anglo American Platinum as well as long-hole stoping in collaboration with the University of Pretoria.

Implats group executive Gerhard Potgieter, who has been tasked with implementing the new strategy, told Mining Weekly Online that off-reef horizontal development was already mechanised and the first units for off-reef incline development were on order.

But mechanised reef mining remained the big challenge, with the Merensky reef the better mechanisation candidate because of its wider seam and mechanisation of the upper group two (UG2) reef tougher because of its greater narrowness.

Meanwhile, mechanised know-how from Implats’ Zimplats mine, in Zimbabwe and its Two Rivers mine, in Mpumalanga had been migrated to bord-and-pillar sections of Impala Rustenburg mine’s Shaft 12 and Shaft 14, where hybrid mechanisation was under way.

“We’re now having to wait for the new shafts,” said Potgieter, adding that mechanisation would then be introduced from the outset.

Questioned by JP Morgan platinum analyst Steve Shepherd on the prospect of the still-unapproved Shaft 18 project going ahead at Impala Rustenburg, Goodlace said that consideration was being given to re-engineering Shaft 18’s design to accommodate full mechanisation.

“There’s no ways we can perpetuate the way we are currently mining and if we can’t prove that we can mine Shaft 18 in a more mechanised way, then we shouldn’t sink it,” Goodlace said.

The pressure was on to come up with a modern, mechanised mining methods to enable the company to mechanise fully from 2023 onwards, when replacement tonnage would be needed.

On the output outlook from the Impala Rustenburg lease area for the next ten years, Goodlace said that the Impala Rustenburg lease area would yield 850 000 oz a year at best and not the million ounces a year as envisaged previously.

He foresaw an opportunity to strengthen the mining mix in the next ten years to a balanced 50:50 split between UG2 and Merensky reefs, from the current less advantageous mix of 55% UG2 and 45% Merensky reef.

“There may be opportunities in the future to drive even higher on the Merensky side but at this stage I am more certain of figures up to 2018, and we'll have to see what happens after that,” Goodlace responded.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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