South Africa’s coal industry has increased its appetite for rehabilitation services to ensure compliance with environmental legislation, says mining consultancy VBKom Consulting Engineers, which is undertaking a rehabilitation planning and scheduling project for an opencast operation in Mpumalanga for a leading coal producer.
“There is a boom in rehabilitation projects in the coal industry, which provides new opportunities for consulting companies, as coal miners are realising the significance of emphasising rehabilitation planning for their operations.
“Our rehabilitation division has been in operation for four years and we are currently busy with the scheduling of 12 projects,” notes VBKom rehabilitation MD John Hough.
He explains that the Mpumalanga project’s life-of-mine will determine the costing and timing of the rehabilitation of the areas that have been affected by opencast mining.
The scope of the Mpumalanga project involves planning and scheduling the rehabilitation of areas that have already been disturbed, as well as forecasting, scheduling and costing the rehabilitation burden for the life of the mine, says VBKom mining engineer Werner Moeller.
“Currently, three areas of the mine are being rehabilitated, with further concurrent rehabilitation planned in future and, eventually, full rehabilitation after the mine has stopped operating to ensure the client complies with legislation,” says Moeller.
Hough tells Mining Weekly that a signifi- cant challenge of undertaking a rehabilitation project at an operating mine is the planning of rehabilitation for areas that have yet to be disturbed by opencast mining. Ensuring that the rehabilitation plans and designs for a client’s operation are workable in the long term to guarantee credible knowledge and the correct management of environmental liability until mine closure is another challenge, he highlights.
To deal with this challenge, VBKom pays close attention to the accuracy of geological models and the life-of-mine production schedule by using coal mining software. This includes scheduled site visits to clients’ operations to ensure the company’s work is consistent, adds Hough.
“We use the latest mining technology, namely mine planning and scheduling tools XPAC, Mine2-4D/Datamine & SurPAC, developed specifically for forecasting, reversing and mine scheduling,” adds Moeller.
The company adds that the XPAC Advanced Destination Scheduler from mining software provider and consultancy Runge is used to simulate an accurate forecast for the rehabilitation volumes to level the disturbed areas comprising spoils, dumps and open voids. These areas are converted to acceptable landforms, which will fall into different land-use categories for agriculture or conservation purposes.
Other Projects
VBKom is also involved in coal-related mining projects for Delta Mining and a coal-focused exploration company in Limpopo.
“We are performing an acid mine drainage study for Delta Mining to assist it in implementing strategies that will ensure sustainable solutions to the water contami- nation challenges that coal miners face. We are also undertaking an optimisation feasibility study in Limpopo,” says Hough.
VBKom has received positive feedback on the work it has done for clients so far and believes that this will lead to further work in future, he concludes.