INVESTING in technology that extended reserve and resource life could save some 200,000 jobs that might be lost by 2025 in South Africa’s mining industry, said Neal Froneman, vice-president of the country’s Chamber of Mines.
Speaking at the Mining Indaba, Froneman described a number of potential mining innovations and practices, including round-the-clock mining, non-explosive rock-breaking and mining at depth.
“If we can lower costs, we can access more lower grade resources and then put in safety pillars and go deeper. Once we get to 24/7 mining we can extend gold mining in South Africa to 2045,” he said. “It’s a huge challenge, but it can be done.”
Froneman said South Africa had 400 million tonnes of low grade gold that was amenable to profitable extraction using some of the techniques he described.
About 160 million tonnes of high grade ore was locked up in pillars that are already exposed if only they could be mined safely. “We could double the amount of mining below current infrastructure with appropriate technologies,” he said.
A low grade mine could extend operations by 15 years; in fact, adding an extra gram per tonnes mined would result in an additional 10 million tonnes yielding two tonnes of gold at mines owned by AngloGold Ashanti and Sibanye Gold – the firm of which Froneman is CEO.
“If we do nothing, gold mining will die out by 2033,” he said. “So, there’s a good reason why should pursue these goals,” he added. “It’s not something we have an option on; we have to do this.”
