Anelle Janse van Rensburg Mining Weekly Features Reporter Local
company Basil Read has been awarded a four-year contract to mine
the Nkana slag dump on the Zambian copperbelt for Avmin.
“The contract involves mining and crushing of slag and waste
material from the Nkana slag-dump smelter and transporting it to
Avmin’s new Chambishi metals plant,” adds MD Jo
Johansson.
“We are currently exploring a number of activities in South
Africa as a number of mining corporations have put tenders out for
contract mining,” he states.
Amplats has put out a tender for an opencast operation at its
Rasimone UG2 reef, Samancor has invited tenders for its opencast
chrome mine at Buffelsused portable crushing plant pricefontein, while Impala platinum has put out a
tender for its opencast mining operation at the Maroelabult
platinum deposit near the Crocodile river mine. In addition,
Australia’s Aquarias has called for tenders to mine its
Marikana platinum deposit.
Johansson adds that contract mining holds a number of advantages
for mining corporations.
Traditionally, mining in South Africa has been carried out inbauxite production in texas-house
by large mining corporations, which generally have little
constraint on access to capital or mining expertise at the start of
a project.
The capital outlay on mining equipment forms a major part of the
overall capital structure of a mine.
Reduction of the mining corporations’ initial capital outlay
will generally enhance the project rate of return.
“Mining corporations are increasingly amobile crushing plant in pakistanppreciating that
outsourcing the mining function substantially reduces the capital
risk in the project, as well as providing immediate access to the
contractors’ management and equipment maintenance
expertise,” says Johansson.
He adds that tender bidding on surface-mining contracts is
extremely competitive given the small size of the South African
contract mining market relative to the large number of
contractorsprice of stone crusher machine in india.
Furthermore, with the increased use and understanding of capital
budgeting techniques, such as discounted cash flow and internal
rate of return, there is an increasing realisation that, by
outsourcing the mining function to contractors, the initial capital
outlay on a project can be greatly reduced, which will enhance the
project rate of return.
Some recent mining operations that have been outsourced to mrock crushing machine pricesining
contractors include the Navachab gold openpit in Namibia, the Tati
Nickel Phoenix openpit in Botswana, the Sadiola, Yatela and Morila
gold openpits in Mali, the Geita gold openpit in Tanzania and
several coal mini-pits on the Mpumalanga highveld and Kwazulu-Natal
coalfields. He continues that the opencast contract mining market
is extremely competitive, with some six major contractors and 15 or
more minor contractors competing vigorously for contracts within a
Southern African market of only around R1,5-billion a year, making
contract mining a viable option as it lowers mining costs for
mining corporations.
In addition, contractors own large equipment fleets, which can be
speedily deployed at the start of a mining project.
Many contractors also have the capacity to purchase whatever
additional equipment may be required.
“The highly-competitive nature of the contract-mining market
results in a high degree of focus on the cost drivers affecting
direct mining costs,” reports Johansson.
These include focus on equipment owning and operating costs,
equipment productivity and optimising mining efficiency in order to
remain competitive.
The nature of the industry necessitates a high degree of focus on
mine planning to ensure high equipment utilisation for the lowest
cost per ton.
“Contractors customarily work on several contracts
simultaneously and, therefore, have the flexibility to move
equipment between contracts to accommodate changed
circumstances,” says Johansson.
“Because of the highly-competitive nature of the
contract-mining market, contractors must use less equipment and a
smaller workforce than in-house operations, with correspondingly
lower labour costs and fewer industrial relations problems,”
he continues.