Modern Mining July 2017

MINING News

Wash plant opened at Zululand Anthracite Colliery produce 1 million tons of saleable prod- uct which will be made available for the export market.

Zululand Anthracite Colliery (ZAC) has opened its new wash plant in an open- ing ceremony attended by King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu. ZAC is located on the border of the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, close to Ulundi, and is reportedly the sole producer of prime anthracite in South Africa. In a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the new plant, King Goodwill and the MD of ZAC, Vuslat Bayoglu, together declared the wash plant open. Afterwards, the opening ceremony continued with a number of speeches being delivered by, amongst others, Sihle Zikalala, Chairperson of the ANC in KZN, Judge Ngwenya from the Ingonyama Trust Board, and Thabo Mokoena, the Director General of the DMR. The new coal processing plant has a 50-ton per hour capacity and is expected to wash 3 million tons of discard over the next five years. This reclamation of the long-standing discard dump will decrease the rehabilitation footprint of ZAC and

Luxembourg-based Menar Holding last year. Menar also controls Canyon Coal, which has three collieries in Mpumalanga. ZAC, which has a current life of mine to 2027, is an underground, deep level, narrow seam operation, using both con- tinuous miners and drill-and-blast mining techniques. Several shafts are currently operated. 

The ZAC resource was discovered in 1985 by BHP Billiton and mining opera- tions were started in 1987. Over the years the mine’s owners have included Riversdale Mining and Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto sold its 74 % stake in the operation to

The new coal processing plant has a 50-ton per hour capacity.

July 2017  MODERN MINING  11