Indian State-owned overseas coal mining group International Coal Ventures Limited (ICVL) has reported that it plans to triple production at its soon-to-be acquired Benga mine, in Mozambique, over the next three years. Read on page 28 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the company recently agreeing a deal with Anglo-Australian group Rio Tinto to buy its share of Benga, an opencast operation in the African country’s Tete province, for $50-million. The deal should be concluded within the next two months. Rio Tinto currently holds 65% of Benga, which it acquired from Australian junior Riversdale Mining in 2011 for $4.1-billion. However, since then, the global mining group has had to write down $3.47-billion of that investment. Perhaps, ironically, ICVL originally made a bid to acquire Benga from Riversdale, but lost out to Rio Tinto. The remaining 35% is held by Indian private-sector group Tata Steel.

Mining services company Sandvik Mining has developed mining software called Intelligent Sandvik Underground Rock Excavation (iSure) that is said to optimise drilling and enhance blast effectiveness. Read on page 28 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the tunnelling project management suite having tools that provide guidelines for different stages of the drilling and blasting process. It is designed to enable miners to achieve increased speed and efficiency, while taking loading and hauling requirements into account. The software, which has been introduced to mines across the sub- Saharan Africa region where tunnelling and blasting operations are taking place, is expected to advance mine tunnelling on the African continent to a higher level. iSure combines tunnel-line, theoretical profile design and drill-plan design, as well as data collection analysis. Rather than rely on less accurate traditional approaches, it provides users with tunnelling patterns to be configured at the end of the round, when the success of blasts is critical.

South Africa’s State-owned Council for Mineral Technology (Mintek) will host its annual analytical symposium on November 7 at the Mintek Auditorium, in Johannesburg. Read on page 15 of this edition of Mining Weekly of the collaboration with the South African Spectroscopic Society (SASS) adding potential value through a more varied bank of analytical knowledge. Mintek’s partnership with the SASS has reportedly been able to advance spectroscopy in South Africa.

Gold mining company Sibanye Gold has begun an intensive search for appropriate technology to make the work of mining safer, easier and more productive. Read about the search on page 8 of this edition of Mining Weekly or watch a video on it by scanning the barcode on page 8 with TagReader (at www.gettag.mobi) on your cellphone, or go to ‘Video Clips’ on www.miningweekly.com.