In 2007 Golder Africa (now WSP in Africa) and Metago (now SLR Consulting) were appointed by Gold Fields and in 2009 completed the design of the Doornpoort Tailings Storage Facility (TSF), a 400Ha TSF with a 14Ha, one million cubic meter HDPE lined Return Water Dam (RWD).
Following the successful completion of the design, Gold Fields South Deep Gold Mine appointed an owners’ team in 2009 consisting of Golder Africa and SLR Consulting to manage the execution of the construction of Phase 1 (260Ha) with WBHO as the contractor and in 2011, after a 2-year construction period, the commissioning of Phase 1.
Due to WSP and SLR’s history with providing project management and resident engineering support during the success of Phase 1, the client saw the benefit of appointing the same consultants as the owners’ team for Phase 2 (140Ha) and again WBHO was appointed as the main contractor for a 1-year project. The main components of the Phase 2 project consisted of bulk earthworks, main and toe drains, two concrete penstock towers, choke station and 4.6km of steel HDPE lined pipelines.
In March 2021, WSP and SLR assisted South Deep Gold Mine with the Phase 2 tender process as well as the technical and commercial adjudication. Construction commenced in June 2021 – and the project reached practical completion at end of August 2022.
WSP was appointed as the lead consultant for both phases, and SLR was the responsible design engineer for the TSF and RWD appointed Engineer of Record (EOR).
On Phase 2, WSP was appointed as the project manager and owners representative responsible for managing the owners’ teams and the project as a whole, including the main contractor. Duties involved appointing the owners’ team members which included a project administrator, quantity surveyors, health and safety officer, resident engineers and off-site quality inspections.
To ensure that the project budget was correct from the onset, WSP appointed Bossert KPO as the professional quantity surveyors (QS) to measure the detailed design and draw up the project Bill of Quantity (BoQ). Throughout the construction phase the QS’s were responsible for cost reports, contractor monthly certificates verification, variation management and other claims.
As WSP and SLR were involved from 2007 with the design and construction of Doornpoort TSF Phase 1 and the same owners’ team members were again available for Phase 2, this benefitted the project tremendously as many of the lessons learned during the construction of Phase 1 as well as any issues identified over the 10-years of operation were used to update the design for Phase 2. The owners’ team also applied years of design experience from other similar projects to provide state of the art features especially on the drains and penstocks systems.
Globally, WSP and SLR are well known for providing tailings dam solutions in the mining and other industries. What makes this project unique is how two professional firms – and under other circumstances may compete in the tailing industry - worked so closely together to produce a fit-for-purpose design and provide support to the client for the construction of the TSF for two different Phases of the project, over 10-years apart (total duration of the project of 14-years).