Team Work and Good Leadership Improves Production Output

Mine Manager Pierre Louw joined Kangra in June 2019. This was after being transferred from affiliated Menar Group company ZAC, where he had been working as the Mining Manager.

When Pierre, with over 20 years of mining industry experience, arrived at Kangra output was languishing at around 40 000 to 60 000 ton run of mine coal a month. He was tasked by Menar COO Bradley Hammond, with turning around the subpar production situation at the mine.

Within the first two months, production was increased to in excess of 100 000 ton a month, reaching over a 120 000 ton by the end of September 2019 – which are the best production figures recorded in the past seven years.

Kangra operates one opencast and three underground coal sections with the mining taking place at the Savmore-Maquasa west mine, the newly developed H-Block and Pit F, using continuous miners and truck and shovel techniques.

One of the mine’s development areas, H-Block, was previously an opencast pit that has been converted into a new underground mine as part of Kangra’s life-of-mine (LOM) plan. Pierre points out that a notable achievement of this project was that the underground section was established while mining was still taking place in the SavmoreMaquasa west mine simultaneously.

“The new underground mine was developed without any disruption to production occurring. So seamless was the transition that the team working on the section received a bonus for the first time.

Furthermore, he points out that the workforce has embraced the new vision of the mine, which has aided in the turnaround strategy and resulted in improved production at the mine.

Kusipongo Project

With the life of existing operations nearing their end, Kangra is planning to develop new mining areas as a natural extension of the current mine workings.

Kusipongo has an underground reserve of around 41.9 million tons and, based on the calculated reserves for Kusipongo, the life of mine is estimated to be more than twenty years.

“The Kusipongo resource situated directly to the west of the existing operations will extend the life of the mine significantly in the interest of our employees and the local community,” states Pierre.

Kangra has an existing mining right and approved Environmental Management Programme for the Kusipongo resource, which was authorised by the Mpumalanga Department of Mineral Resources in July 2017.

To further enhance the viability of the Kusipongo mining right, Kangra is also investigating the development of three opencast coal mining pits within the Kusipongo mining right area. This would involve the removal of shallow coal using opencast methods and utilising the high wall of these pits to gain access to the underground coal.

“By pulling together, doing proper planning, hard work, communicating clearly with the team and creating unity between the engineering and mining departments, we were able to achieve new heights. We are confident that this positive involvement and attitude by all the stakeholders will take us to even greater heights,” Pierre remarks.