South African Business 2020 edition

SPECIAL FEATURE
New Vaal Colliery and three Mpumalanga mines from Anglo American
for R2.3-billion.
South Africa’s largest coal producer is Exxaro, a South African company.
Typically, coal mines were linked to power stations as is the case
in Limpopo Province where Exxaro operates its Grootegeluk mine. This
site is next to the Lephalale power station and the giant new Medupi
power station. But uncertainty about how national utility Eskom wants
to proceed with its coal purchases has made miners look increasingly
to export markets.
Limpopo’s Waterberg coal field still has billions of tons of coal in the
ground. The country’s other big coal province is Mpumalanga (where
Sasol has just finished commissioning a third new mine) but it is also
found in the northern part of the Free State.
Zinc
When phase three is reached, the biggest new mining project in South
Africa will deliver 600 000 tons of zinc for Vedanta Zinc International.
Located at Aggeneys in the Northern Cape near the border with
Namibia, the Gamsberg zinc project has so far attracted $400-million in
investment from the company and started trucking product to the Port
of Saldanha in 2018. Phase one of the open-pit operation will deliver
an annual load of 250 000 tons of zinc. If it proceeds to phase three, it
will likely go underground.
The Northern Cape Province is planning for a deep harbour at
Boegoebaai. Part of the strategy involves the creation of a commodities
corridor linking the Upington Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with the port.
Australian miner Orion is putting considerable resources into
investigating the possible revival of the Prieska Zinc-Copper Project.
Diamonds
An ongoing project by De Beers to convert its Musina mine from an
open-pit mine to a vertical-shaft mine will extend the life of mine of
this northern Limpopo project to 2045. Venetia Mine is by far the most
important part of De Beers’ South African operation, accounting for
3.1-million of the 5.4-million carats recovered by the company from
its six operations.
A R1.6-billion processing plant is being built at Cullinan in
Gauteng by Petra Diamonds, with a throughput capacity of
6 Mtpa. The mine’s orebody contains a diamond resource of
194 Mcts which is why Petra is expanding with a goal of annual production
of 2.2Mcts by 2019.
In the Northern Cape, Ekapa Mining has paid R300-million to buy
out Petra Diamonds from a JV.
Iron ore and manganese
In 2019 Sitatunga Resources purchased
the East Manganese project
on the Hotazel-Kalahari ore
belt from Southern Ambition.
Menar Holdings, which controls
a majority share in Sitatunga, is
mostly invested in coal.
Afrimat, a listed construction
materials supplier and industrial
minerals group, has added openpit
mining to its portfolio with
the R322-million acquisition of
the Diro mine, which had been
in business rescue. The Diro mine
has proven run-of-mine reserves
of 10-million tons.
The overwhelming majority
of the world’s manganese
comes from the Postmasburg and
Kalahari regions of the Northern
Cape. Assmang has two manganese
mines in the province:
Nchwaning and Gloria.
The Northern Cape produces
more than 84% of South Africa’s
iron ore. The province has two major
iron belts, from Postmasburg
to Hotazel, and running through
Sishen and Kathu. Sishen is the
most important iron-ore mine
in South Africa, where operations
include extraction and four
beneficiation plants.
Kumba Iron Ore has the
huge Sishen facility at Kathu and
Kolomela. Assmang, a joint venture
comprising African Rainbow
Minerals and Assore, mines at
Khumani. The company will
spend R2.7-billion on upgrading
its Gloria mine.
South32 is active in the
Northern Cape: Hotazel
Manganese Mines is made up
of two mines, Wessels (under-
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