February 2014
MODERN MINING
23
COAL
Above:
The boxcut at
Kangala. The upper seams
have already been mined
and the Komatsu 850
excavator is standing
on the BC1 seam.
Left:
Location of Universal
Coal’s thermal and coking
coal projects.
Below:
Looking towards
the plant with the DMS area
in the centre of the photo,
the crushing and screening
circuit on the right and the
ROM tip retaining wall in the
background.
He is running an operation which will even-
tually total around 250 employees, including
contractors.
The role of Stefanutti Stocks in the develop-
ment of Kangala has been substantial. Not only
is the company acting as the contract miner,
but it has provided a ‘one-stop’ solution for the
mine’s infrastructure, has been responsible for
the mine design, and also acts as the materi-
als handling contractor tasked with hauling
and processing coarse discard. Its work has
included terraces for the process plant, the
office complex and workshops, a stormwa-
ter management system, a 25 ha co-disposal
discard facility, a 200 000 m
3
HDPE-lined pol-
lution control dam (including a pump station
and concrete-lined silt trap), a power distribu-
tion system and a sewerage and water system.
Also within its scope of work has been a
3,5 km product haul road consisting of 2,6 km
of double-seal black top and 900 m of gravel
road, all linking to the nearby R42 provincial
road, via an upgraded intersection. The road
will handle around 100 loads a day. This aspect
of the contract was handled by Stefanutti
Stocks Roads & Earthworks.
With Kangala now operational, Universal
will soon be transferring some of its focus to
its two other projects in the Witbank coalfield,
Roodekop and Brakfontein, both of which it
is hoping to start developing this year for pro-
duction in 2015 (subject to the conclusion of
successful feasibility studies).
Brakfontein, in which it currently has a 50,29
per cent stake (potentially expandable up to
74 per cent) could be a low-cost ‘bolt-on’ to
Kangala, as it is located just 15 km to the east
of the mine. It has a JORC-compliant resource
of 87,66 Mt, of which 70 Mt is in the indicated
category. Universal envisages developing it as
an open-pit, thermal coal project, with product
being produced for both the export and domes-
tic markets. A mining right application was
submitted in December 2011 and accepted by
the DMR in March 2012.
Roodekop, for its part, is located 35 km
south of Witbank in the Kriel district and has
a coal resource of 84,3 Mt (82,9 Mt in the mea-
sured category). Owned 74 % by Universal,
the project hosts bituminous coal that would
have to be beneficiated to produce a primary
26,5 MJ/kg product suitable for the export
market and a secondary 20,5 MJ/kg product
for Eskom. In addition, low phosphorous coal
