Free State Business 2022

OVERVIEW
Mining
Mining activity is picking up in some sectors.
The Lejweleputswa District Municipality in the northwest
of the province is the site of considerable activity
in the mining of industrial minerals, with six companies
currently active. Matsopa Minerals, for example, runs
a bentonite mine at Koppies between Heilbron and
Vredefort. Sandstone and sand-mining operations are
underway in Qwaqwa, Fouriesburg, Senekal, Sasolburg
and Zastron.
Limestone and calcrete occur in the western Free State
where salt is also panned. Production is concentrated
around the Florisbad salt pan, north-west of Bloemfontein.
Historically, the north-west part of the province
was famous for gold, with Harmony Gold’s Bambanani
mine forming an essential part of Welkom’s economy
for many years. Bambanani is in the final stages of its
life-of-mine but there are other areas where Harmony
Gold is still extracting gold and investigating possible
expansion programmes.
The company is conducting an exploration
programme to confirm the geological model of Target
North and further define a potential block of wellmineralised
Ventersdorp Contact Reef. Tshepong
contributed 19% of the group’s gold production in FY20,
even though production was somewhat down (7 293kg
vs 7 967kg in FY19). Various challenges, not least of which
was the Covid-19 pandemic, caused the reduced volume
but this was outweighed by an increase in the recovered
grade. Harmony Gold has announced that it will build a
30MW solar plant to help power its operations.
AngloGold Ashanti sold most of its assets to Harmony Gold,
two of which, Great Noligwa and Kopanang, are in the Free State.
The complex includes one uranium plant, four gold plants and one
sulphuric acid plant.
These assets increased Harmony’s underground resource
base in South Africa by nearly 40%. The mines include Tshipong
and Phakisa (near Odendaalsrus), Virginia, Target (near Allanridge),
Masimong (Riebeeckstad), Joel (near Theunissen) and Bambanani at
Welkom. The plant at Joel was closed in 2019 and ore mined there
is now processed at Harmony One. Phakisa has mineral reserves
of just over five-million ounces of gold and Harmony has invested
heavily in the project.
Sibanye-Stillwater is also investigating a possible new project next
to its existing Beatrix mine. Gold prices rose appreciably during the
Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s Beatrix mine, with a life-of-mine
SECTOR INSIGHT
Harmony Gold is investing in
solar power.
Credit: Harmony Gold
projected to 2025, produced
196 698 ounces of gold in 2019.
Beatrix also holds 26.97-million
pounds of uranium resources.
Mining rights to the Southern
Free State project adjacent to
Beatrix have been approved
and a feasibility study on part of
it, the Bloemhoek decline, has
been completed. The company
reported that the Southern Free
State property had surface and
underground gold reserves
of 2.1-million oz and mineral
resources of 8.2-million oz.
The mining sector makes
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