Modern Mining October 2019

MINING News

ZAC poised to grow anthracite market share

become a bigger player in the anthracite market worldwide,” Hammond said. “Our strategy of ensuring high ton- nages, low cost and high-quality product is one of the main reasons why there is grow- ing interest in our products from countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, the USA and Spain. We are therefore aggressively pushing to increase our marketing efforts to expand our global supply footprint,” Hammond added. Located in the district of Ulundi, in north- ern Kwazulu-Natal (KZN), ZAC has 12 million tons of reserves remaining, five under- ground sections and produces 1 million tons of anthracite per annum. It has processing plants on site which have a combined pro- cessing capacity of 2,2 million tons per annum. The product is washed to top quali- ties of 0,9 % to 1,4 % sulphur with extremely low ash content ranging from 8,5 % to 18 %. The high-quality products are sized to customer specifications. They are critical components in electrode paste, calcium carbide and ferrochrome production, among other applications. About 80 % of ZAC’s product is sold in South Africa as a cheaper option to manufacturers compared to higher cost Russian anthracite or coke from China. Hammond noted that since acquiring the mine, Menar, ZAC’s main shareholder, had overcome immense challenges and transformed it into a sustainable mining operation that contributes to the well-being of its host communities. Until Menar acquired ZAC in September 2016, the mine was at different stages owned by BHP Billiton (from 1985), Riversdale Mining (from 2005) and Rio Tinto (from 2011). Menar turned the opera- tion around and it is now on the verge of declaring a maiden dividend that will also benefit the workers and community who hold a combined 26 % stake. The mine employs 1 350 people and participates in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s job creation flagship project, the Youth Employment Service. “We continue to invest in the mine to improve capacity and efficiencies and aim to expand our capacity in years to come,” Hammond remarked. Plans for expansion of ZAC’s operations to increase life of mine include bringing on stream new projects such as Riversdale Anthracite Colliery (RAC) and the Mfolozi project, which would be a combination of opencast and under- ground mining. Both projects are located in northern KZN. 

The processing plants at ZAC, one of which is seen here, have a combined processing capacity of 2,2 million tons per annum (photo: Menar).

Zululand Anthracite Colliery (ZAC), South Africa’s sole producer of prime anthracite, is confident about the medium to long-term growth of demand for the product as it pre- pares to expand the life of mine beyond the remaining 12 years. “We are confident about the future of the market both locally and internationally for ZAC’s products,” Bradley Hammond, invest- ment company Menar’s Chief Operating

Officer, told a Southern Africa Coaltrans conference in Johannesburg in September. “We are a ‘One Stop Shop’ for anthracite that has all the facilities to size and blend our products according to market needs, and we have sufficient capacity and access to rail for export and transport to local and international consumers. We are the pre- ferred supplier to key industrial clients in the South African market and we plan to this new frontier for gold exploration. “During our technical review meetings in July, the team identified and ranked seven key areas within Cameroon where we felt the geological potential merited us staking new licences. We have now submitted eight new licence applications covering a district- scale land package in our highest ranked areas. “Having attended the CIMEC confer- ence in Yaoundé last month, where the Mining Sector Capacity Building Project (PRECASEM) presented prospectivity data from the first phase of the programme, I’m pleased to report that the results from regional geochemistry across our new licence areas have identified multiple strong gold anomalies. We look forward to explor- ing these further, following the completion of the licensing process.” 

Oriole Resources expands its footprint in Cameroon Oriole Resources, the AIM-quoted explo- ration company focused on West Africa, is expanding its footprint in Cameroon fol- lowing early success at the Bibemi and Wapouzé gold projects, where it is earning up to a 90 % interest through its partnership with Bureau d’Etudes et d’Investigations Géologico-minières, Géotechniques et Géophysiques SARL (BEIG3).

Oriole has formed a new 90 %-owned local subsidiary, Oriole Cameroon SARL, and has submitted applications for a dis- trict-scale land package of approximately 3 500 km 2 in the centre of the country. Comments Oriole’s Chief Executive Officer, Tim Livesey: “As we indicated back in May, our success to date in Cameroon has given us the confidence to build on our existing footprint in the country to capitalise on our position as first movers in

10  MODERN MINING  October 2019