COMMODITY: GOLD & PGMs
Finer particles of gold, which would have gone to waste in building materials, are removed from the waste rock to hang around,” says Motsoenyane. Another challenge that the company faces, which it can’t do much about, is the weather. When it rains, it becomes very difficult to work, and the area is located in a relatively high rainfall area. Adding to that are the controlled operating hours. “We can only work during certain hours of the day, which
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places a damper on our operations. We cannot just work when we want to,” explains Motsoenyane. “We are working under exacting conditions, as there is a large ratio between the rock and fines – there is far more rock than fines. Hence, we are constantly looking at ways to speed up the generation of fines, so that they are sufficient to supply both Pan African Resources and Mintails Gold. “But, being a macro-scale operation, we have to think out of the box to provide sustainable solutions to all these challenges.”
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Uniqueness of the project This project is different in the sense that it provides a solution for both the quarry and the mines. “We give value to all parties by providing the mines with gold-bearing fines and taking away contaminated material that is of no value to the quarry. We also feed cleaned mate-
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rial on to the quarry’s belts. “It turns something that is deemed a hindrance by one into value for another
quarry, because it results in blockages
as this aids in the maintenance of the
from fines that would otherwise clog the stone crusher. This directly leads to a decrease in maintenance costs,”
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T he angle of operation for the bulldozer is quite steep
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A view of the screens and heaps of various material sizes
Background
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ome fines from the screens on to S the fines heap
are waste rock from the underground
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N camiso Mashinini, CEO, and Tshego Motsoenyane, COO, Ncamiso Trading
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aterial is being fed into the M screen with a conveyor
explains Motsoenyane.
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The dumps that are being reworked now working of the Nigel Gold Mining Company that was started in 1889. The mine was later taken over by Consolidated Modderfontein Mine in 1979. The operations ceased in the early 1990s.
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IN SID E M IN IN G 0 7 | 2016
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