Modern Mining January 2018

DIAMONDS

metric, as it has over 300 female employees in a total workforce – excluding contractors – of around 1 350 people. But our aim is to do much better and automation will undoubtedly help in this respect.” Apart from autonomous operation, the VUP is pioneering in another key area. For the sinking of the vertical shafts, the mining and shaft-sinking contractor, Murray & Roberts Cementation, has deployed – for the first time in Africa – a new shaft-sinking methodology derived from its sister company, Cementation Canada. As Modern Mining has explained in a pre- vious article on the VUP, the new system involves the use of ‘sling down’ vertical drill rigs (VDRs) and vertical shaft muckers (VSMs) accommodated in the sinking stage. The VDRs, apart from dramatically reducing the number of workers required on the shaft floor during drilling, offer greater drilling precision than the jumbo rigs used in the past. As for the VSMs, they are equipped with long, extendable booms with jaws on the end and are operated from the stage in a remote-controlled manner. They clean the shaft floor faster and more effectively than conventional cactus grabs, at the same time providing far greater safety. The VSMs are also able to manoeuvre the kibbles – which can weigh a ton or more – into position, eliminating the potentially dangerous practice of handling them manually. Both the drill rigs and the VSMs being used at Venetia were originally developed by a Canadian company, MTI, which later became part of Joy Global (now Komatsu). Each shaft at Venetia is served by two VDRs and two VSMs. Delivery of explosives has also changed in the new method, with pumpable bulk

Above: The Venetia process- ing plant. It will – with some modifications – be able to process the 5,9 Mt/a of ore that the underground operations will generate (photo: Arthur Tassell). Left: Miner entering the portal to the Venetia Under- ground decline.

“There will be a greater need for people with technical qualifications as opposed to craftsman or artisan-type skills.”

operations such as Finsch, autonomous opera- tion leads to far less wear and tear on machines and can result in total run hours being extended by up to 50 %.” Nortje emphasises that the reduced number of people required underground as a result of automation will only have a minimal impact on the size of the workforce at Venetia. “The potential – and I stress the word ‘potential’ – reduction in the total number of employees is just 5 %. What will change, however, is the profile of employees. There will be a greater need for people with technical qualifications as opposed to craftsman or artisan-type skills. “One of the benefits, incidentally, of auto- mation is that it will support Venetia’s drive to increase women in mining,” he continues. “Venetia is already doing well on this particular

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