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Photo of Week
FUTURE DRILLING:
By: Martin Creamer 13th December 2019 The Mandela Mining Precinct last month unveiled the two new rock drill prototypes that are designed to enhance drilling operations and reduce the exposure of operators to dangerous conditions. The prototypes, developed under the Isidingo Drill Challenge, are lighter, quieter, more energy... →
INFORMAL DIAMOND MINING:
By: Martin Creamer 6th December 2019 INFORMAL DIAMOND MINING: Members of the Batho Pele cooperative of artisanal miners sift through sand and rocks as they search for diamonds in Kimberley, the site of the nineteenth-century diamond rush that attracted fortune-seekers from across the globe. More than 800 informal miners have been... →
LANDMARK QUARRY:
By: Martin Creamer 29th November 2019 LANDMARK QUARRY: Cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates company AfriSam earlier this month took journalists on a tour of its Jukskei granite quarry, in Midrand. This landmark quarry, founded in a rural setting in the 1950s, today showcases quality control, safety and environmental protection... →
DIGITAL FIRST:
By: Tracy Hancock 22nd November 2019 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed mining company Exxaro, headed by CEO Mxolisi Mgojo, is building the first-of-its-kind digital and connected operation in Mpumalanga province. The R3.3-billion Belfast coal-mine project is six months ahead of schedule and on track to, from next year, begin... →
STAR OF OVERHEAD CRANE:
By: Martin Creamer 15th November 2019 The humble hook-block is the star of this electric overhead crane, which Condra Cranes custom designed to specification for a metal refinery. The block’s electrically insulated square steel frame, suspended horizontally from the four rope pulleys shown, has five hooks for three applications. The... →
FOUR-KILOMETRE TRAIN:
By: Donna Slater 8th November 2019 The longest production train in the world is in daily operation on South Africa’s manganese line. State-owned rail company Transnet Freight Rail broke world records on October 24 with this 375-wagon train, which is powered by the tractive effort of four locomotives. The 4 km-long train carries 24... →
DEVELOPED WORLD CHECKS ON DEVELOPING WORLD:
By: Martin Creamer 1st November 2019 Exploration and mining company Societe Miniere de Bisunzu (SMB) runs this coltan mine, near the town of Rubaya, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Coltan – short for columbite-tantalite – is used to produce tantalum capacitors for electronic devices. When refined, the 80%... →
GOLD REVIVAL DOWN UNDER:
By: Martin Creamer 25th October 2019 A dump truck enters the portal to the underground mine at the Kirkland Lake Gold-linked Fosterville Gold Mine in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Production in the goldfields of Victoria state has been rising in tandem with the rising gold price. Output has climbed to the highest level since 1914,... →
CHANGING WORLD OF WEATHER:
By: Martin Creamer 18th October 2019 World weather is changing in a way that is revealing Nature’s power, attendees of the Tenth Oppenheimer Research Conference heard this month, when former mining luminary Nicky Oppenheimer emphasised the importance of working with Nature through climate-positive action. Oppenheimer (right) and... →
LAID-OFF COAL WORKERS TO BE RETRAINED:
By: Martin Creamer 11th October 2019 A train loaded with coal is motionless on the tracks inside the Black Mountain mining complex in Kentucky of bankrupt mining company BlackJewel. The US Department of Labour last week allocated $3.72-million towards the retaining of laid-off employees, who blocked the train in protest of working... →
END OF AN ERA:
By: Martin Creamer 4th October 2019 END OF AN ERA: De Beers’ Venetia opencast mine will reach the end if its life in 2021. First mined in 1990, the opencast mine has a surface area of 17.7 ha and produces about 4.5-million carats a year. It is responsible for 100% of De Beers South African diamond production. Construction of the... →
COAL EXTENSION:
By: Darren Parker 27th September 2019 Coal mining and exploration company Canyon Coal has extended its Philanndwa Colliery’s life of mine to 2027 through the opening of the Philanndwa Colliery Extension Project, which celebrated its first blast in July. The extension, situated 20 km outside Delmas, in Mpumalanga, aims to produce... →
MANGANESE MAJOR:
By: Martin Creamer 20th September 2019 The Tshipi Borwa opencast manganese mine, with integrated ore processing plant, is said to be the largest manganese mine in South Africa and one of the five largest globally, with a long–life resource and low operating costs. It is located 20 km south-west of Hotazel, in South Africa’s Kalahari... →
PICTURESQUE PAIN:
By: Martin Creamer 13th September 2019 Part of the Black Mountain coal mining complex, formerly owned by now-bankrupt mining company BlackJewel, in Cumberland, Kentucky, US. Blackjewel and its affiliates had coal operations in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Wyoming, and its assets went up for auction. Blackjewel follows other... →
FROM OPENCAST TO UNDERGROUND:
By: Martin Creamer 6th September 2019 Chilean president Sebastian Pinera cut the ribbon at the inauguration of the Chuquicamata underground mine of Codelco, at Antofagasta, Chile, last month. After 104 years of opencast mining, the world's largest pit mine became a high-tech underground operation to meet the higher environmental and... →
SINGLE-CHANEL MARKETING:
By: Martin Creamer 30th August 2019 Canadian fertiliser company Nutrien last month gave a rare tour of its underground Cory potash, which is located some 20 km west of Saskatoon. Production of red potash resumed in January following a period of slowed-down production and layoffs. The 375-employee mine also produces white variants... →
JOURNEY TO THE TOP:
By: Martin Creamer 23rd August 2019 Twelve years after applying for a mining right, Sepfluor opened the R1.7-billion Nokeng Fluorspar mine and concentrator plant, which will ramp up to full commercial-scale production by the end of August. At an average run-of-mine rate of 630 000 t/y, the mine will produce 180 000 t/y of acid... →
IMPLATS HYDROGEN FUELLING STATION:
By: Martin Creamer 16th August 2019 IMPLATS HYDROGEN FUELLING STATION: Platinum group metals mining, refining and marketing company Impala Platinum (Implats) has a hydrogen refuelling station at its refinery in Springs, which is used to refuel the company’s hydrogen fuel cell forklift truck. The fuel cell in the pioneering forklift... →
COPPER MINING IN ECUADOR:
By: Martin Creamer 9th August 2019 A view of the now-operating Chinese-owned Mirador mining project in Tundayme, southern Ecuador, where output began last month. This is an outcome of President Lenin Moreno’s effort to boost the Ecuadorian mining sector and wean the country’s economy off its over-dependence on oil. The Andean... →
RESIDENTS SEE RED AT IRON-ORE PORT
By: Martin Creamer 2nd August 2019 Residents, mining companies and the state government have for long been tussling over the effect on people’s health of the red dust generated by the transfer of iron-ore at Port Hedland, in Australia, the world’s largest bulk terminal. Rail wagons dump more than half a billion tons of iron-ore a... →
HEAVY CANADIAN METAL:
By: Martin Creamer 19th July 2019 Employees assemble a mining vehicle at Arva Industries’ heavy machinery manufacturing factory in St Thomas, Ontario, Canada, ahead of Statistics Canada last month reporting a 0.8%. overall April sales fall in eight of 21 industries, representing 36.1% of total Canadian manufacturing.... →
PROTESTERS WANT FASTER CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION:
By: Martin Creamer 12th July 2019 Hundreds of climate-change protestors, dissatisfied with Germany’s timeframe of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, last month stormed into the pit of the Garzweiler opencast brown coal lignite mine near Duesseldorf, in western Germany. Some officers were hurt while trying to hold back protesters,... →
SUN AND WIND BECKON:
By: Martin Creamer 28th June 2019 Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe (above) has received a broad mandate as head of the merged portfolios of mineral resources and energy, a weighty task in the light of South Africa’s overwhelming dependence on coal, which is now being cold-shouldered by financial institutions... →
TAILINGS TRAGEDY:
By: Martin Creamer 21st June 2019 A scene at the Hpakant area of Kachin state in the north of Myanmar, where a mine mudlside buried 54 miners in April. The mud flowed down from a collapsed tailings dam. Hpakant, 950 km north of Yangon, is noted for jade mining, which contributes significantly to the gross domestic product of the... →
ILLEGAL MINING DECIMATING RAINFOREST:
By: Martin Creamer 14th June 2019 Peruvian president Martin Vizcarra is taking firm steps to eradicate illegal mining in this deforested area of the Amazon jungle, at La Pampa, Madre de Dios, in southeast Peru. Shown near abandoned illegal mines is a base from which police are operating to track down illegal operators. According... →
MINERALS COUNCIL PRESIDENT RAISES CONCERNS:
By: Martin Creamer 7th June 2019 During his address at last month’s Minerals Council South Africa annual general meeting, re-elected Minerals Council president Mxolisi Mgojo praised the commitment of mining companies to solving safety, transformation and inclusive growth problems. He pointed out, however, that policy uncertainty... →
STRANGE ESKOM CONTRADICTION:
By: Martin Creamer 31st May 2019 State electricity utility Eskom has the strange contradiction of over-staffing in some parts of it and under-staffing where the much-needed actual electricity generation takes place, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan told last week’s Minerals Council South Africa dinner attended by... →
DESTINED FOR DECOMMISSIONING:
By: Martin Creamer 24th May 2019 A large excavator is seen operating in Germany’s Garzweiler opencast mining area, in front of the lignite-fired Frimmersdorf and Neurath power stations, owned by Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE), one of Europe's biggest electricity companies. Since 2005, a shutdown process has been... →
EMERALD MINING:
By: Martin Creamer 17th May 2019 Gemstone mining and marketing company Fura Gems is set on introducing modern mining to Coscuez, Colombia, where it is involved in emerald mining. Coscuez has yielded emeralds for more than 300 years but, as reported by Bloomberg, Colombian emeralds are now more difficult to find. According to... →
STRATEGIC PLATINUM:
By: Martin Creamer 10th May 2019 Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa examines platinum exploration core samples at a function where Cyprus-based Karo Resources, chaired by Loucas Pouroulis, updated its $4.2 billion platinum mining project in Mhondoro Ngezi. As part of a strategy to transform Zimbabwe into a middle-income... →
REPLACEMENT COAL MINE:
By: Martin Creamer 3rd May 2019 Sasol has officially opened the R5.6-billion, 8.5-million-tonne-a-year Impumelelo Colliery in Mpumalanga, the last of its three replacement coal mines, following the opening of Shondoni and Thubelisha. The output from the three replacement mines will satisfy Sasol’s coal needs until 2050. As the... →
HYDROGEN AND PLATINUM FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE:
By: Martin Creamer 26th April 2019 The use of hydrogen and platinum to combat climate change was emphasised at this month’s Platinum Group Metals Industry Day in Johannesburg, where Anglo American Platinum CEO Chris Griffith said that “very real and credible progress is being made in the development of the hydrogen economy”. In... →
KISSING COAL GOODBYE:
By: Martin Creamer 19th April 2019 A mineworker kisses the last piece of coal from the Franz Haniel shaft at a ceremony marking the closure of the last active black coal mine in Bottrop, Germany, a country which once thrived on the combustible black rock. As recognition of climate change science as set out by the United Nations... →
UKRAINIAN UNEASE:
By: Martin Creamer 12th April 2019 A mineworker toils inside the Novovolynska-9 coal mine, which is the focal point of a Ukrainian police investigation into a coal deal that some anti-corruption campaigners say resulted in mineworkers not being paid salaries while unnamed officials allegedly lined their pockets. State-run coal... →
FLOATING POWER STATION THAT SAVES WATER:
By: Martin Creamer 5th April 2019 These solar panels are floating on a tailings dam at Anglo American’s Los Bronces copper mine on the outskirts of Santiago, in Chile. The first-of-a-kind solar island reflects the South African mining company’s commitment to clean renewable energy as well as the use of far less water. The shadow... →
PLATINUM'S LAND AND WATER LARGESSE:
By: Martin Creamer 29th March 2019 Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) has switched on its newly commissioned Bokamoso waste water management plant, near the company’s Waterval Smelter. The plant will process waste water from nearby residential areas, including the Bokamoso housing project site, which is under construction. The... →
IRON-ORE MINING IN UKRAINE:
By: Martin Creamer 22nd March 2019 This is ArcelorMittal’s opencast iron-ore mine in Kryvyi Rih, in Ukraine, where the company produces concentrate, lump and sinter feed. Mining is core to the growth strategy of ArcelorMittal, which produces steel in South Africa as ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) and operates the Thabazimbi... →
RUSSIAN DIAMOND:
By: Martin Creamer 15th March 2019 A 24.21 ct rough diamond on a scanner at Alrosa’s selling organisation in Russia, where sorting, valuation and sale of Alrosa diamonds is carried out. The United Selling Organisation employs 500 professionals who grade the gemstones, with diamond acceptance tracked on a computer database. Russia... →
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