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Carletonville Herald
19 Julie 2013
‘Look at me’ is the meaning of Mponeng AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng Mine is located on the West Wits Line near Carletonville about 65 km south-west of Johannesburg. Shaft-sinking at Mponeng began in 1981 with the twin shafts commissioned along with the gold plant complex in 1986. The name Mponeng means ‘look at me’ in the local Sotho language. It is mined to an average depth of
2 800 m to 3 400 m below surface and is one of the world’s deepest and richest gold mines with grades at over 8g per ton. Mponeng is one of three AngloGold mines in the West Wits, the other being Savuka and TauTona. Formerly known as the Western Deep Levels South Shaft, or Shaft No 1, Mponeng is the most recently sunk of the three AngloGold Ashanti mines. In 2007 the AngloGold Ashanti bo-
ard approved a project to develop the Mponeng mine below the 120 level, adding some 2,5 million ounces of gold and eight years to the mine’s life. The mine will eventually be deepened to over 4 000 metres. When mining at depths of more than 3,000 metres, where rock temperatures can reach 55°C, cooling systems are a crucial part of the operation. Mponeng is cooled by four large ice
refrigeration plants. Ice is pumped through large pipes in order to help cool the air for the underground workers. Mponeng produces an estimated 550 000 ounces of gold a year, and can produce about 1 700 ounces of gold a day. Gold is then transported to the surface, and melted on site into a bar of about 90 percent purity, destined for the Rand refinery in Johannesburg.
Headgear at the Mponeng shaft. This was formerly known as the Western Deep Levels No 1 Shaft.
TauTona is the deepest mine in the world The TauTona mine, near Carletonville is currently, at about 3,9 km deep, the deepest mining operation in the world. Until 2008 this record was held by the neighbouring Savuka mine at 3,7 km. TauTona and Savuka are two of the three Western Deep Levels mines of the West Wits gold field and are owned by AngloGold Ashanti. The name TauTona means ‘great li-
on’ in the Setswana language. Savuka means ‘wake up’ in isiZulu. Savuka was originally built as the Western Deep Levels No 2 shaft in 1958 and Tautona as Western Deep Levels No 3 shaft. The main shaft of Tautona was sunk in 1952. Excavation from this mine started in 1962. TauTona is so deep that temperatures in the mine can rise to life threatening levels. Air conditioning equip-
ment is used to cool the mine from 55°C down to a more tolerable 28°C. The rock face temperature currently reaches 60°C. The journey to the rock face can take 1 hour from surface level. The lift cage that transports the workers from the surface to the bottom travels at 16 metre per second (58 km/h). Tautona today has some 800 km of tunnels, and about 5 600 miners
work in these tunnels to extract this metal. Tautona and Savuka share processing facilities. Savuka was brought under the management of the other AngloGold mine in the area, Mponeng in 2005. After lengthening the shaft of TauTona to be the deepest mine in the world, it was expected that it would bring the life expectancy of the mine to 2015.
Elandskraal became Kusasalethu
Kusasalethu Gold Mine, formerly known as Elandskraal, is one of the mines on the West Wits Line near Carletonville. It was formed after the amalgamation of Elandsrand and Deelkraal mines. The mine is owned by the Harmony Gold Mining Co Ltd and was bought from AngloGold Ashanti in 2001 for R1 billion in cash. Elandsrand came into production in 1978 and had an anticipated life to 2001. The subsequent commissioning of the sub-vertical shaft in 1984 and the acquisition of Deelkraal from Gold Fields in 1997, which allowed access to further reserves, extended this life span significantly. Kusasalethu mines mainly the Ventersdorp Contact Reef (VCR) and the Carbon Leader. Production in 2008 was 158 631ounces. A R989 million project to develop a deeper ‘new mine’ to exploit the VCR between 3 000 and 3 600 metres below surface was completed in 2010 and was expected to boost annual production to 416 000 ounces. Kusasalethu comprises of twin vertical and twin sub-vertical shaft systems. Mining uses conventional methods in a sequential grid layout. Ore mined is treated at the Kusasalethu plant. On 3 October 2007 3 200 employees were trapped underground when a 15
m compressed air pipe broke away just below surface in the men and material shaft and fell to the shaft bottom, severely damaging both the shaft steelwork and the electricity supply to the sub men and material shaft. The trapped workers were all
brought to surface by 16:00 the following day after cages were installed in the rock shaft. Forty-eight days of production were lost. The mine, which was closed on 20 December 2013 due to labour unrest, reopened in a phased process from 15
February 2013, after an agreement was reached with various trade unions. It is expected that the mine will reach full production by the end of June 2013. Source: anglogold.com; wikipedia.org; harmony.co.za
The name of the Elandsrand gold mine was changed to Kusasalethu on19 February 2010. In this photograph are Mr Theo Keyter (general manager), Mr Wiseman Tikipedi (the employee who proposed the new name), Mr Dumsi Mahlalela (National Union of Mineworkers representative) and Mr Alwyn Pretorius (Harmony's operating offiucer in the Northern region).