Modern Mining February 2023
Editor’s take: Gold is always your best bet, especially when things are falling apart, and it’s best to invest in it before things fold. In fact, with turbulence in crucial areas around the world, investors have already been on the money as the precious metal showed its resilience, soaring to a new decade high. The World Gold Council’s latest Gold Demand Trends report reveals that annual gold demand in 2022 increased by 18% year-on-year, hitting 4 741 t – the highest annual total since 2011. Annual central bank demand more than doubled to 1 136 t in 2022, up from 450 t the year before and to a new 55-year record high. Purchases in Q4 2022 alone reached 417 t, bringing the total for the second half of 2022 to more than 800 t, the WGC said.
On the cover
Moolmans enters five-year contract with Tshipi é Ntle
In line with its vision to be the premier mining contractor in Africa, Moolmans has entered into a new five-year contract with long-standing client, Tshipi é Ntle. Moolmans is providing a full mining service to South Africa’s biggest exporter of manganese, which includes bush clearing, topsoil stripping, drilling and blasting, loading and haul of ore and waste at the Tshipi Borwa mine in the Kalahari Manganese Field (KMF) in the Northern Cape. The contractor-operator model has resulted in the mine becoming one of the lowest-cost manganese ore exporters globally and has enabled a flexibly scaled production process that can respond to manganese ore price volatilities and market conditions.
A case for vanadium in the energy transition
As the market grows and the uses for energy storage expand, the technology mix is also diversifying. Vanadium redox flow batteries, (VRFBs), are increasingly contributing to new energy storage deployments thanks to their long lifetimes of over 20 years with no performance degradation, scalability, safety and full reusability of their vanadium electrolyte. They are as modular as other types of batteries but become much cheaper when four to ten hours of energy storage is needed daily.
Resolute maps comprehensive strategy for next five years
With over eight months at the helm, Resolute Mining’s CEO, Terry Holohan, is confident that the company is in a strong position to unveil a new long-term strategy aimed at unleashing pent-up value from its two producing gold mines, Syama in Mali and Mako in Senegal.
Industry bodies search far and wide for FOG solution
The mining industry’s aggressive drive to identify and implement solutions for Fall of Ground (FOG) incidents, which over the past few years have accounted for roughly a third of mining fatalities, has seen industry bodies, the Mandela Mining Precinct (MMP) and the Minerals Council South Africa spearhead the Rock Hazard Identification (RHID) and Safe Removal Innovation Challenge 2022, targeting a fit-for-purpose solution. Amid a strong line-up of contenders, local supplier of advanced geotechnical monitoring radar systems, Reutech Mining’s Sub surface profiler (SSP), took top honours.
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