Ivanhoe Mines -- ehemals Ivanplats - Mining-Legende Robert Friedland auf Rohstoffjagd in Afrika (Seite 42)

[Popeye82]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.591.185 von Boersiback am 08.03.14 19:30:53

Vollkommen wertlos, so.
Und in "schlage den Analysten" bin ich zunehmend gut geworden.

Gruß
P.

[Boersiback]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.591.165 von sebaldo am 08.03.14 19:21:03

die setzen aber ganz schön hoch an... über 200% drüber

[sebaldo]

Ivanhoe Mines Stock Rating Upgraded by UBS AG (IVN)
March 7th, 2014 • 0 comments • Filed Under • by ABMN Staff
Share on StockTwits

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd logoIvanhoe Mines (NYSE:IVN) was upgraded by equities research analysts at UBS AG from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Friday, TheFlyOnTheWall.com reports.

IVN has been the subject of a number of other recent research reports. Analysts at RBC Capital reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Ivanhoe Mines in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Analysts at BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage on shares of Ivanhoe Mines in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, The company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $4.95.

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (NYSE:IVN) is an international mineral exploration and development company.


http://www.americanbankingnews.com/2014/03/07/ivanhoe-mines-…

[Popeye82]

Zitat von ooy: das Risiko eher begrenzt und die Chance eher riesengross?

Ein Anfang das zu beantworten wäre mal -Warum denkst Du das?

Gruß
P.

[ooy]

Lesezeichen, ich habe grosses Interesse hier, das Risiko eher begrenzt und die Chance eher riesengross?

[sebaldo]

March 03, 2014 07:33 ET
Ivanhoe Mines Begins 20,000-Metre Drilling Program Designed to Confirm and Expand Kipushi Mine's Historical High-Grade Zinc-Copper Resources

Successful dewatering program opens underground access for drill rigs

LUBUMBASHI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO--(Marketwired - March 3, 2014) - Robert Friedland, Executive Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN), and Lars-Eric Johansson, Chief Executive Officer, announced today that work has begun underground on the company's 20,000-metre diamond-drilling program at the Kipushi copper-zinc-germanium-lead and precious-metals mine on the Central African Copperbelt in southern Katanga Province, less than one kilometre from the Zambian border.
The drilling is designed to confirm and update Kipushi's estimated historical resources and to further expand the resources on strike and at depth. Production at the mine ceased in 1993.
"This is a major advance toward our goal of returning Kipushi, formerly one of the world's highest-grade copper and zinc mines, to full production," Mr. Friedland said.
"Our first rig began drilling from a strategically sited pad 1,225 metres below surface last Saturday. We expect that two additional rigs now en route to Kipushi also will join the drilling later this month."
Crews have been upgrading underground and surface infrastructure to support the start of the drilling program since access to the mine's principal working level at 1,150 metres below the surface was restored in December 2013.
The mine, which was placed on care and maintenance in 1993, flooded in early 2011 due to a lack of pumping maintenance over an extended period. Water reached 851 metres below surface at its peak. After acquiring a 68% interest in Kipushi in November 2011, Ivanhoe Mines assumed responsibility for ongoing rehabilitation and pumping, which now has dewatered to the 1,257-metre level. Ivanhoe expects to have the mine dry to its lowest ramp level at 1,325 metres below surface during this current quarter, several months ahead of earlier projections.
100 holes planned in underground drilling program
Ivanhoe's 2014 drilling program is scheduled to complete approximately 100 holes totalling more than 20,000 metres. The objectives are to:
• Conduct confirmatory drilling to validate the historical resources within Kipushi's Big Zinc Deposit and Fault Zone (see accompanying Figure 1 graphic) - which were included in the September 2012 Kipushi Technical Report prepared by IMC Group Consulting - and qualify them as current resources prepared in conformance with the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) standards as required by National Instrument 43-101.
• Conduct extension drilling to test and upgrade the deeper portions of the Big Zinc and Fault zones, below the 1,500-metre level, which previously were classified as Inferred Resources.
• Conduct exploration drilling to test areas that have not been previously evaluated, such as the deeper portions of the Fault Zone and extensions to the high-grade copper mineralization of the mine's Northern Deposit.
• Obtain large-diameter drill core from the Big Zinc for confirmatory metallurgy test work.
New, underground drill holes also may provide a platform for geophysical exploration of Kipushi's deep mineral potential, leveraging the Ivanhoe group's proprietary, in-house expertise. Kipushi has never been evaluated using modern geophysical techniques.
Most of the drilling will be conducted from sites on the hanging-wall development drift at the 1,270-metre level and from the footwall ramp below the 1,150-metre level.
The first hole has been started on the 1,225-metre level at an inclination of -67 degrees and is designed to test the depth continuity of the Big Zinc Deposit and the down-dip extension of the adjacent, copper-rich Fault Zone. The hole is expected to be drilled for approximately 600 metres to a depth of greater than 1,800 metres below surface. It also will provide sample material for ongoing metallurgical studies.
The second and third rigs will begin confirmatory drilling from sites on the 1,270-metre level. A 280-metre step-back extension of the hanging-wall drift will be driven to enable rigs to test deep extensions of the Big Zinc and Fault zones.
Independent consulting engineering firm MSA Group, of Gauteng, South Africa, has been appointed to prepare a current estimate of the Big Zinc resources to CIM standards following completion of the confirmation drilling program.
Known resources at Kipushi
Previous mining at Kipushi was conducted to a below-surface depth of 1,207 metres on the Kipushi Fault, a deposit of high-grade, copper-zinc-lead mineralization that has a strike length of 600 metres. The Fault Zone mineralization is known to extend to at least 1,800 metres below surface, based on previous drilling reports prepared by state-owned mining company Gécamines (La Générale des Carrières et des Mines).
The Big Zinc Deposit, adjacent to the Fault Zone on the footwall side, was discovered shortly before the mine ceased production in 1993 and never has been mined. From its top at approximately the 1,200-metre level, the Big Zinc Deposit extends down dip to at least the 1,640-metre level, as indicated by Gécamines' drilling reports.
Accessible from existing underground workings, the Big Zinc has a strike length of at least 100 metres, a true thickness calculated at 40 to 80 metres and is open to depth. Gécamines also reported that multiple, steeply-dipping, Big Zinc exploratory holes intersected exceptionally high-grade zinc mineralization, grading 42% to 45% zinc, between the 1,375-metre and 1,600-metre levels, with estimated, apparent thicknesses of between 60 and 100 metres.
To view Figures 1-6, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/IVN303_F1-6.pdf.
Production history at Kipushi
From its start-up in 1924 as the Prince Léopold Mine, Kipushi produced a total of 6.6 million tonnes of zinc and 4.0 million tonnes of copper - from 60 million tonnes of ore grading 11% zinc and approximately 7% copper - until operations were halted in 1993 due to political instability. The mine also produced 278 tonnes of germanium between 1956 and 1978. Underground workings were extensively flooded during Kipushi's 18 years of care-and-maintenance as a former state-owned asset before Ivanhoe Mines acquired a 68% interest in the Kipushi Mine in 2011; Gécamines retained a 32% interest.
In addition to the recorded production of copper, zinc, lead and germanium, historical Gécamines mine-level plans for Kipushi also reported the presence of precious metals. There is no formal record of gold and silver production; the concentrate was shipped to Belgium and any recovery of precious metals was not disclosed during the colonial era.
The Kipushi Mine is adjacent to the town of Kipushi, approximately 30 kilometres southwest of the provincial capital of Lubumbashi.
Previous estimate of historical resources
IMC Group Consulting, which prepared the current Kipushi Technical Report, considers the historical estimate prepared by Techpro Mining and Metallurgy in 1997 to be the most relevant and reliable. Techpro reported the following resources:
Resource Category Tonnes Copper % Zinc %
Measured 8,899,979 2.53 9.99
Indicated 8,029,127 2.09 24.21
Total 16,929,106 2.32 16.76
Inferred 9,046,352 1.93 23.32
Totals shown above include the following Big Zinc resources:
Measured 793,086 1.16 33.52
Indicated 3,918,366 0.68 39.57
Measured & Indicated 4,711,452 0.76 38.55
IMC is of the opinion that the Techpro estimate generally is fair and reasonable for demonstrated Measured plus Indicated resources and that Inferred mineral resource estimates largely represent the projection of Kipushi's Fault Zone mineralization from the 1,500-metre level to the 1,800-metre level.
Although Gécamines' drilling confirmed that the Big Zinc continues down to at least the 1,640-metre level, the historical Measured and Indicated Resources for the Big Zinc are stated only to 1,500 metres.
Gécamines principally was interested in the copper content of the Kipushi Mine, not its zinc content. Ivanhoe considers that the density estimation factor used by Gécamines to calculate resources was only an approximation and may be inappropriate for the estimation of zinc in high-grade, iron-poor sphalerite, such as occurs in the Big Zinc, and therefore potentially understates the Big Zinc's historical resources.
A Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current Mineral Resources and Ivanhoe Mines is not treating such estimates as current Mineral Resources. The 1997 estimate was prepared in accordance with the JORC Code. Ivanhoe Mines will validate previous work through new drilling, sampling, assaying and other procedures to produce a mineral resource that is current for CIM purposes.
Further information relating to the historical resource estimate is included in the Kipushi Technical Report, dated September 2012, prepared by IMC and available at www.sedar.com and www.ivanhoemines.com.
Qualified Person, Quality Control and Assurance
The scientific and technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Stephen Torr, P.Geo., Ivanhoe Mines' Vice President, Project Geology and Evaluation, a Qualified Person under the terms of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Torr has verified the technical data disclosed in this press release.
About Ivanhoe Mines
Ivanhoe Mines, with offices in Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa, is advancing and developing its three principal projects:
• The Kamoa copper discovery in a previously unknown extension of the Central African Copperbelt in the Province of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
• The Platreef Discovery of platinum, palladium, nickel, copper, gold and rhodium on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa.
• The historic Kipushi zinc, copper and germanium mine, also on the Copperbelt in the DRC and now being dewatered and upgraded to support a future return to production of copper, zinc and other metals following a care-and-maintenance program conducted between 1993 and 2011.
Ivanhoe Mines also is evaluating other opportunities as part of its objective to become a broadly based, international mining company.
Statements in this release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in the company's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. When used in this document, the words such as "could", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "potential", "should" and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. Information provided in this document is necessarily summarized and may not contain all available material information.
Statements in this release that constitute forward-looking statements or information include, but are not limited to: statements regarding the expectation to reduce the current water level during Q'1 2014; statements regarding plans to commence and complete an underground drilling program consisting of approximately 100 holes totalling more than 20,000 metres; statements regarding the expectation to extend the known mineralization down dip. Statements regarding the primary goals of the 2014 drilling program; statements regarding plans to confirm and expand the mine's historical resources; statements regarding Ivanhoe's goal to return Kipushi to production as one of the world's highest grade mines; and statements regarding MSA Group being appointed to prepare an updated resource estimation of the Big Zinc Deposit. All such forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by Ivanhoe Mines' management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believe are appropriate in the circumstances. These statements, however, are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information or statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements include those described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the company's most recently filed MD&A. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements.

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/ivanhoe-mines-begin…

[sebaldo]

Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines has just published an awesome African photo journal

http://ceo.ca/2014/02/27/robert-friedlands-ivanhoe-mines-has…

@Popeye
Persönliche Fragen beantworte ich dir gerne per BM.

[Popeye82]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.497.069 von sebaldo am 20.02.14 16:32:24

Sebaldo,

Hast Du mein Post Nr.149, mit der Liste, löschen lassen??
Es ist Dein gutes "Recht", das würde mich aber mal interessieren.
An lernen -"über Pressemeldungen hinaus" ist hier ja offensichtlich niemand interessiert.

Gruß
P.

[Popeye82]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 46.448.809 von Popeye82 am 14.02.14 01:38:30

Zitat von Popeye82: Mag sein, aber als Land gesehen dürfte wahrscheinlich das Problem sein dass sie für die Rohstoffunternehmen eh schon "zu teuer" -neben noch, nicht gerade wenigen, anderen Problemen- sind, die Rohstoffunternehmen eh schon die Kostenbremse drücken müssen.
Also ergo, realistisch wahrscheinlich kaum Spielraum vorhanden ist.
Da die Streiks aber ernster scheinen, ist das vermutlich schon ein Pulverfass. Brauchts vermutlich nicht viel zu bis jemand mal Streichhölzer findet. ...

Naja, ich hatte vor einiger Zeit 2 Videos, auf Konferenzen, dazu gesehen, das ist seeehr kompliziert glaube ich.


Ich glaube es ist -"wirtschaftlich"((vor allem)in den Gründen auch in anderen Bereichen zu suchen)- zu einem großen Teil einfach so dass die Arbeiter -"endlich mal"- ein größeres Stück Kuchen von der steigenden Bedeutung der Rohstoffe abhaben wollen, die Unternehmen(und Andere) Ihnen aber vermitteln(müssen), dass das nicht wirklich "drin" ist.


Es ist ja kein Zufall dass die (süd)afrikanischen (PM)Förderer riesige Probleme haben zu "wirtschaften". Die glaube ich sehr breitgefächert und an verschieden(st)en Stellen zu suchen sind.
Ich möchte mal so sagen -verstääändlich mögen da beide Seiten sein. Aber es ist manchmal -beziehungsweise sogar oft(kennen wir würd ich sagen auch in Deutschland zu Genüüüge)- seeehr schwierig zu sehen/erkennen/"sich einzugestehen" dass das Nötige, beziehungsweise "(langfristig")bessere" öfter auch mal geraaade das (kurzfristig(er))für einen nicht Gute sein kann.

Und somit steht man denke ich vor einem "Meeegadilemma".
Ich möchte nicht in, billige, Parolen fallen, oder zynisch sein, aber ich würde meinen dass in dieser Zerissenheit/Problematik wirklich eines der größten/grundsätzlichsten Probleme liegen dürfte. ...

Die Hütte brennt. ...

... wie gesagt, Hütte, (oder auch)seeeeehr schwer zusammenzubekommende Interessen


... Wasser, Mühlen, rauf ...


der Topf will kochen, der Deckel ins Kino.
Oder die Hütte.
Aber die brennt ja.

Tja, also wer zutrefferende Aussagen gemacht hat, darf sich melden
Insgesamt sollte das Platreef aber eher entgegenkommen.

Strike edging platinum sector to crisis: producers - Mmx - Feb 19, 2014

- David McKay -
www.miningmx.com/page/news/platinum_group_metals/1639708-Str…

"SOUTH Africa's three largest platinum producers raised the prospect of further job cuts as a strike over wages by the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU) entered its fifth week resulting in an industry revenue loss of R4.4bn.

"It won't be too much longer before losses are irrevocable," said Chris Griffith, CEO of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats). "And all the time, confidence is decreasing in the South African mining industry and in narrow reef mining," he said.

Terence Goodlace, CEO of Impala Platinum (Implats), said about 10% of the company's workings had been "irreversibly lost" and would require re-development and rehabilitation. "The longer we stand the more irreversible" damage to the mining assets were sustained, he said, adding that the company's mines would have to operate at between one to three months before they would be profitable again.

The risk to the platinum sector is primarily to their net debt levels which climb in the absence of cash flow, threatening covenants with financial institutions, and therefore requiring pre-emptive cash-saving restructuring.

Employee numbers in the South African platinum sector had shrunk to less than 134,000 souls by December 2013 from 145,000 in December 2011. A prolonged strike could "exacerbate this reduction and may result in more restructuring and possible closures," said Goodlace in a prepared statement.

Ben Magara, CEO of Lonmin, said there was a technical risk to the company's processing facilities as smelters were idled which led to contraction. Lonmin has a history of furnace break-outs at its operations.

AMCU has stood by its initial demand of a R12,500/month salary for entry-level workers, a demand that would result in a mean increase of up to 150%, the platinum producers said.

AMCU's demand has been met by an industry offer, adjusted several times, for a three-year wage increase of between 7% to 9%. The last offer, which was put on table on January 29, was a position that Griffith said was already unaffordable and would see the companies "return to the drawing board" in an effort to accommodate the cost increase. South Africa's inflation rate was about 5.4%.

"The union (AMCU) refuses to accept the economic circumstances facing the industry or the cost structures of these companies," said Griffith. "It has no or little interest in preserving jobs through economic means and has displayed widespread disregard for collective bargaining," he said.

He, however, stood by comments articulated on February 14 at the results presentation of Amplats' parent company Anglo American in which he said a second month of no wages for employees would presage a change in AMCU's stance.

"Pay day is when the pain will be felt," he said. "The real impact of the strike will be felt at that point." At the time of writing, employee wage losses amounted to R1.94bn.

Responding to a question, Griffith said that the three producers were considering having AMCU's strike declared unprotected on the basis that the union's actions had been unlawful. "There could there be a scenario where we consider declaring it illegal; it is something we are considering," he said.

AMCU had been responsible for overt and covert intimidation and an application to have AMCU in contempt of court, having broken pre-agreed picketing rules, goes to court on Friday (February 21), said Griffith. Efforts to extract up to R600m in damages from the union by Amplats would take longer, he said. "

[Popeye82]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 45.318.825 von Popeye82 am 25.08.13 04:26:38

Südafrikas PM Minen verrecken zu gutem Teil dran, Platreef lacht sich drüber tot:

Narrow-reef precious metals mining '@a crossroads' - MW/CMR - Feb 21, 2014

- M. Creamer -
www.miningweekly.com/article/narrow-reef-precious-metals-min…








"Mechanical engineer Rod Pickering spent 20 years at the Chamber of Mines Research Organisation (Comro) running the stoping technology laboratory, the part of the now-defunct Comro that focused on hard rock, narrow-reef mining.

After leaving Comro in 1996, he spent another 18 years running his own business and again focused on the adoption of better mining methods in that narrow-reef space.

Now, as chairperson of the Centre for Mechanised Mining Systems steering committee, Pickering’s message is crystal clear: South Africa’s narrow-reef mining has to move to the next level, or the country will end up with closed mines on its hands.

The function of the ten-year-old Centre for Mechanised Mining Systems, located at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), is to identify appropriate technology applications, understand the people factors and adopt a systems approach to mining mechanisation and automation in some of the country’s deepest, darkest and most dangerous precious metals operations.

The latest breakthrough is a combination of mechanised equipment and selected blast mining (SBM), which provides the best of both worlds.

Pickering’s comments dovetail with those of veteran research commentator Dr R E (Robbie) Robinson, who has called for the introduction of SBM in South Africa’s narrow-reef stopes as a way of boosting the struggling sector.

The mechanisation introduces efficiency and eliminates the need for people in the vulnerable areas and SBM eliminates dilution and boosts metal recovery.

Mechanised mining methods have gone on apace outside of the hard rock, narrow-reef scenario.

Opencast mining, room-and-pillar mining and block-cave mining have, the world over, all mechanised successfully, leaving South Africa’s generally tabular-orebodied mines with an urgent need for a higher productivity solution.

Gold has been a serious laggard, as the deciding factor when it comes to room-and-pillar mining, which is what most practitioners have adopted, is the angle of the dip being not more than 100, whereas it is a substantially steeper 230 in many West Wits and Carletonville gold mines.

In chrome and platinum mining, where the dip is generally not more than 100, 30-million tons a year are being mined using mechanised low-profile room-and-pillar mining method in narrow-reef orebodies.

Original-equipment manufacturers (OEM) have come to the low-profile party and the number of pieces of equipment acquired by mining companies has justified the OEM investment into equipment designed for narrow stopes.

However, the shortage of artisans to maintain the equipment does present difficulties.

“We’ve had a shortage of those kinds of hands-on skills for many years,” Pickering tells Mining Weekly Online.

To overcome the shortage, companies like Sandvik have established major apprenticeship training programmes.

There is also a shortage of management with an understanding of this mechanised method of mining and most graduates are being skilled up to do conventional mining.

To remedy that, the Centre for Mechanised Mining at Wits has put considerable effort into course development on trackless mechanised mining, rock cutting and materials handling, and the university itself now has an MSc Honours degree in mechanised mining.

The most recent course on trackless mechanised mining attracted 40 people, an indication that the industry is recognising the shortfall and that the university has something to offer.

The enrolment of particularly black students into mining has been substantial in recent years.

However, because of the lack of mining uptake by students in the 1980s and 1990s, there is a middle-management gap and a shortage of mentoring, which the centre is also addressing.


COMRO’S DEMISE

An opportunity to introduce mechanised mining far earlier was probably lost as a result of the closure of Comro.

Even AngloGold Ashanti’s extremely promising effort at raise boring the reef goes back to 1974.

“It’s invariably not about new technology but about technology which is available and which can be adapted,” Pickering adds.

The centre has a systems approach and deals with the introduction of mechanisation and SBM holistically, to come up with answers that suit particular needs rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

“You fix one thing and if you're not careful, you get unintended consequences and find a bunch of other issues coming out of it,” Pickering has found from long experience.

The centre is also engaging in research and a number of PhD and MSc students are registered through the centre to do things that will add value.


SELECTED BLAST MINING

Pickering is engaged in a project involving the mining of a 400-mm-thick reef using mechanisation with SBM.

The waste material is being blasted into the back of the stope, where it is being used as backfill.

Long holes are being drilled into the footwall of the reef, waste material that SBM is blasting into the back of the stope is being used as backfill, and the precious reef is being cleaned out with a small dozer, similar to those used in underground platinum mines.

Pickering reports that Dr Immo Bock has been deploying the rock-breaking system for many years, but without the benefit of mechanisation.

“He’s been doing it with hand drilling and he’s had a lot of success with it, but we’re now taking it a step further and saying we want to do it as a fully mechanised process.

“So we develop two drifts on strike and then we do long-hole drilling between the two. We blast the waste material into the back area and the density of that fill is going to be more than two.

“So it’s going to be a very dense fill. We pop up the footwall and we’re getting the benefit of not pulverising the rock, getting all the fines and not losing the gold,” Pickering explains.

Productivity is increased, creating scope to pay fewer personnel higher pay.

“Hard-rock, narrow-reef mining has to change. We cannot continue the way we are at the moment. It’s absolutely unacceptable. We’re going to end up by having none of these conventional mines left because there is no way with the current wage demands, and I’m not being negative about them, that the economics can stack up,” Pickering warns.

The current method of blasting scatters the finely divided gold and platinum ore far and wide and lowers the rate of precious-metals recovery significantly. SBM shock fractures the rock instead of losing significant amounts of it in high-energy explosions.

“It’s not as if we are going to pull some magic bunny out of a hat and suddenly say we can go in there and do laser rock cutting,” Pickering says, adding that long-hole drilling is a tried and tested technology and that modern blast initiation systems are impressive.

The solution lies in packaging known technologies in a manner that cuts costs and enhances safety.

Far-improved tempos of production result and the days of being pleased to mine 6 m a day in a 30 m panel can be left in the dust of the new approach.


ANGLE OF DIP NO LONGER MATTERS

The driving of two development ends on strike and the use of SBM renders the angle of the dip of the reef irrelevant, and known mechanisation technology used the world over in narrow-vein greenstone belts can be adapted to suit South African conditions.

The tall, slim narrow-vein machines are redesigned as low, wide narrow-reef machines.

“Just think about narrow-vein gold mining, which takes place in greenstone belts the world over. There are probably more narrow-vein mines than any other and typically they put in development drives on the reef and do long-hole drilling between the two to enable rock to be broken and taken out.

“We’re really talking the same methodology but just applying it into a different environment. The functionality of the machine is the same.

“When the first low profile machine was put underground, it had the same wheel motors, power packs, boom, feed and drifter but we just packaged it differently,” Pickering recalls.


CONVENTIONAL TO MECHANISED

In the 1980s, the Randfontein Estates Gold Mine, under Hugh Scott-Russell, was converted from a conventional mine into a mechanised one.

While conventional mining involves off-reef footwall development ahead of on-reef development, paying on reef takes place from the outset with mechanised mining – and Scott-Russell proved that it does not have to wait for a new mine but can be introduced in existing mines.

“You can do it with an existing mine but you’ve got to have a plan and you must understand the orebody, the mining method and the metallurgy,” he says.

With the back blasting that SBM offers, low-profile 1.8 m drill rigs, load haul dumpers or dumpers suffice and ultra-low profile machines are unnecessary.

The fully remotely controlled Austrian-made cutting machines are 1.2 m high.

“With the kind of fibre-optic links and the Internet connectivity now available, you can operate the machine remotely from Austria.

“With SBM, you can tram narrow and mine wide because you are stuffing all the wide into the back area. You can actually have low profile equipment of 1.8 m operating, and you can still mine a narrow orebody,” Pickering adds.

The drive for mechanisation is generic throughout commodities and has arisen on the back of the need for more safety and productivity than conventional mining can offer.

The thousands of people being sent underground every day are now examining the risk-to-reward ratio more intensely and demanding the greater reward that machine-mediated productivity can provide.

Consulting engineers performing feasibility studies on new projects are recommending mechanisation wherever possible.


JOB SECURITY AND SKILLS

A common issue that is raised when discussing automation and mechanisation in industry is job losses for those who used to perform the job manually.

However, rather than people losing jobs, they will be upskilled and make higher wages more justifiable.
Working conditions will also be improved as machines are deployed do the ‘dirty work’.

“The growth of mechanised mining in Africa, in line with global trends, is creating many more job opportunities for artisans, who are needed to support equipment in the field.

President Jacob Zuma announced the provision of ten more further education and training facilities and OEMs have set up many training courses.


CAPITAL COSTS VS OPERATIONAL COSTS

While mechanisation is capital intensive, there is payback over time, and greater power or fuel use is mitigated by greater efficiency and needs to take into account the power consumed by conventional mining inputs, including compressed air for drills, lighting and ventilation.

Low-profile rigs can drill holes in far less time than people using hand-held drills.

When Sandvik’s AutoMine system was launched in 2000, it was said to hold significant cost and safety implications for large-scale underground mining.

Since then, AngloGold Ashanti has fast-tracked the development of reef-boring technology that bores the reef and extracts “all the gold, only the gold, all the time, safely”.

No gold is left behind because of the elimination of the need for pillars as a result of immediate backfilling.

In the absence of drilling and blasting, there is no seismic shake-up.

Pictures have shown a 30-m-long hole at a 27° dip taking out gold reef alone, which should put paid to mine call factor issues.

Steps are now being advanced to get the process to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The new technology opens up unmined shaft pillars and ultra-deep mining.

AngloGold Ashanti’s South African gold reserves will double with its introduction but if it is not introduced, labour levels will fall. "