Modern Mining April 2018

MINING News

Mines, responsible for the Gaborone and Francistown offices; Dutch Botes, a mining engineer with over 30 years’ coal mining experience, who has been appointed as Technical Advisor; and Lynette Kruger, who has 18 years of coal marketing expe- Minergy strengthens its management team

Emerging Botswana-focused coal miner, Minergy, has strengthened its manage- ment team. The company expects to start mining coal from its Masama site – a 390 Mt opencast, low strip ratio mine in the Mmambula coalfield, 50 km north of Gaborone – in July 2018, with the first sale- able coal available in September 2018. Comments Andre Boje, Chief Executive Officer at Minergy: “The Masama coal proj- ect represents an exciting opportunity for the development of a small to medium scale coal mine in Botswana. During the start-up phase of production, we antici- pate producing 1,2 million tonnes of coal and will require approximately 300 employees directly and indirectly; as pro- duction ramps up, further employment opportunities will be created.” The new appointments are Gabotshwa­ rege Tshekiso, a mechanical engineer with more than three decades of experience in the mining industry, who previously worked as a Director in the Department of

rience across Southern Africa and joins as Marketing Manager. Following a listing on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) in April 2017, Minergy now plans to list on the UK’s AIM in the latter part of this year. 

Wits Mining School jumps up world rankings The School of Mining Engineering at the University of theWitwatersrand has shot up the world league tables to take 15th place in the 2018 QS World University Rankings. Up from its position as number 22 in last year’s rankings, it is the only mining engi- neering school in Africa to feature in the top 50 ranking of mining engineering schools worldwide. This accolade also makes it the highest ranked school at Wits University. “It is extremely encouraging to earn this recognition, in light of our ongoing efforts to keep our school at the leading edge of

learning and research,” says Head of School Professor Cuthbert Musingwini. With about 800 undergraduate and post- graduate students – about 15 % of them from countries outside South Africa – the school is the largest mining engineering programme in the English-speaking world. The QS World University Rankings name the world’s top universities in 46 different subject areas and five composite faculty areas. It is the only international ranking recognised by the International Ranking Expert Group. 

April 2018  MODERN MINING  15