Capital Equipment News December 2018

MINING NEWS

Leeuwpan breathes sigh of relief

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Exxaro’s Leeuwpan Coal Mine, situated near Delmas, Mpumalanga, was at imminent risk of running out of coal. On Friday, 28 September, it breathed a sigh of relief as a new road made way for it to access precious coal reserves. “Leeuwpan needed to develop an area where it could mine another 5,1 million tonnes per annum to extend its life by a further 10 years,” says Mervin Govender, Exxaro Group projects manager. A national road – the R50 – ran over the identified area and another private access road, the Thaba Chueu Mine (TCM) road servicing the nearby silica mine, was also affected. Both roads needed to be redirected in parts for Leeuwpan to reach the new mining area. It was a race against time. “A project like this would normally take 14 months, but Exxaro needed it completed in eight months to avoid the mine closing in 2019,”

says Govender. The project team went one step further and completed it two months ahead of a fast-track schedule. The R50 and TCM roads were handed over to Exxaro at the end of August and opened to the public on 28 September. As testimony to the quality of work despite extreme time pressures, the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport signed off the road without any amendments, the first time ever that a public road has been completed to the Department’s complete satisfaction. “The successful completion of the construction of the R50 deviation and new TCM access road now opens up the OI block for mining and extending the life of Leeuwpan Coal Mine, resulting in significant investment and economic growth for the Delmas area,” says Nombasa Tsengwa, executive head Coal Operations. b

Debtech ore sorters for Jwaneng diamond plant

Two high-throughput X-Ray Transmission (XRT) ore sorters from De Beers Technologies SA (DebTech) have been installed at Debswana’s Jwaneng diamond mine, as key elements of its new Large Diamond Recovery Pilot Plant. According to Gordon Taylor, Head of DebTech, the XRT Coarse Concentrator Plus (CC+) units were specially developed for the Botswana mine to treat run-of-mine at combined throughputs of up to 500 t/hour while allowing for the recovery of large diamonds with negligible extra material. Design and construction of the XRT CC+ units began in 2017, and they were delivered to Jwaneng in January 2018 for early integration into the construction of the Large Diamond Recovery Pilot Plant. Taylor highlights that the recent developments in XRT technology make the identification of diamonds much more accurate, changing the economics of finding larger diamonds. The XRT CC+ units at Jwaneng are based on the original XRT Coarse Concentrator model developed by DebTech and operate using imaging systems and sorting algorithms proven at several De Beers Group operations. The CC+ machines are assembled, transported and operated in 12 m shipping containers, allowing them to be fully tested in workshop conditions and quickly commissioned on site. Each unit is self-contained with its own power conditioning, compressed air generation, closed circuit water cooling and machine control room. b

• Up to 500 t/hour

The CC+ machines are assembled, transported and operated in 12 m shipping containers.

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