Flooding forces closure of Aurora gold mine

Allan Seccombe | Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:52
[miningmx.com] -- FLOODING OF two shafts and the evacuation of 800 workers from the Grootvlei gold mine has forced Aurora Empowerment Systems to suspend production at the mine.

Gold production at the operation will not cease entirely because half the gold produced at Grootvlei comes from treating surface material, said Aurora's Dawid Stander.

The mine produces 2,000 tonnes of ore a day with a headgrade of two grams a tonne, he said.

Aurora's insurance company has been notified and an assessor is on site, he added. The government's mines inspectorate has been informed and an official is in attendance.

Aurora burst onto the South African gold mining scene late last year, spending R1bn buying two mines from the liquidators of Pamodzi Gold, agreeing to buy a 60% stake in DRDGOLD's Blyvoor mine, acquiring the Primrose gold mine and most recently the ERPM gold processing plant from DRDGOLD.

The acquisitions have been met with a great deal of scepticism because all four operations are considered marginal and difficult, requiring large injections of capital.

One of the Pamodzi Gold mines was the Grootvlei mine, which has a water problem, entailing continuous pumping to keep working areas dry.

Johannesburg has had nearly two weeks of rain, exacerbating the water ingress at Grootvlei. The mine normally pumps 80 million litres of water a day and has had to increase this by 50% to 120 million litres because of this.

Management suspects water is pouring into the mine after a nearby river, the Blesbok, burst its banks sending water across fields and into defunct shafts outside its mining lease area, Stander said. These old workings are all connected by underground tunnels.

By this morning underground water levels had risen 1.5 metres in just 24 hours. By early afternoon today, the water was 600mm higher. This prompted the immediate evacuation of workers from the lowest parts of the mine. Workers in higher levels left the mine at the end of their shift. No workers, apart from pumping teams, have been allowed back underground.

Aurora has sent out earthmoving equipment to build sand walls to halt the inflow of water into the mine.

Aurora has received financial backing for a consortium of investors from the Far East and the Middle East.

"Aurora assures that it is investigating ways of containing the flooding as a matter of urgency in order to ensure operations resume safely as soon as possible," Aurora said.