Coal news and updates

Sasol Mining’s R14bn coal projects roll-out under way in Mpumalanga

Coal miner Sasol Mining is in the process of replacing 60% of its coal production through four projects currently under way in Mpumalanga, MD Peter Steenkamp said on Thursday.
 
The 8 000-employee Sasol Mining, which produces 40-million tons of coal a year from one of the world’s largest underground coal-mining complexes, is in the process of developing four different replacement projects, three of them major.
 
The company also buys in five-million tons a year from Anglo American Thermal Coal’s Isibonelo colliery, mines nearly two-million tons a year at Sasolburg, in the Free State, for the group’s Infrachem chemicals production, and exports some three-million tons of coal a year.
 
A feasibility study of Sasol Mining’s low-cost coal assets in Limpopo province’s Waterberg area, which is destined to be South Africa’s next big coal source, is also under way.
 
“It’s a very exciting time for Sasol Mining,” Steenkamp said in a Mining Weekly Online video interview (see attached).
 
The capital earmarked on the four projects exceeds R14-billion.
 
Thubelisha, which is close to completion and in production, will ramp up in the next two years and extend the life of the Twistdraai colliery beyond 2039.
 
Impumelelo, which will replace Brandspruit, will have a 26 km conveyor feeding coal to the Sasol Synfuels plant.
 
Shondoni will replace Middelbult and the smaller Tweedraai will replace part of Syferfontein.
 
More than 90% of the coal mined is beneficiated to produce synthetic fuels and a wide range of chemicals.
 
Sasol Mining's operating profit in the 2013 financial year was R2.2-billion, 3% down on the previous financial year owing to lower export prices and higher operating costs.

Source: Mining Weekly