WORKING TOWARDS UNDERGROUND RESOURCES AT OTJIKOTO MINE

Vancouver-based B2Gold plans to conduct mining of the Wolfshag zone at its Otjikoto mine in Namibia and has appointed Murray & Roberts Cementation in a joint venture with Lewcor Mining to establish the underground stoping horizon.

According to Allan Widlake, new business director at Murray & Roberts Cementation, mobilisation on site has begun and the contract will take 28 months. Otjikoto Mine is Namibia’s largest gold producer and has been in operation since 2015. The Wolfshag zone at Otjikoto comprises a series of shallow, easterly dipping mineralised shoots that sub-crop below calcrete cover, plunging for a strike length of at least 1 600 metres.

The contract will see a decline of five metres wide by 5,5 metres high being driven to the orebody from a portal in one of Otjikoto’s depleted open pits. There will also be two four-metre diameter ventilation shafts created using raiseboring methods. One will measure 200 metres in depth, and the other 80 metres.

“We will be conducting this project in a strategic partnership with a highly professional local Namibian opencast mining and earthmoving contractor, Lewcor Mining,” says Widlake. “Lewcor isan existing service provider at Otjikoto and is well regarded by the client and the industry.”

He says the operation will be highly mechanised and efficient, with equipment including drill rigs, dump trucks, load haul dumpers and utility vehicles, as well as shotcreting and ancillary equipment. About 150 employees will be active on the project, including a highly experienced crew from a recent contract in Zambia. Most of those involved will be Namibians, who will be trained as part of a special counterpart training programme to transfer skills to local workers.

Widlake says he is excited by the project and the prospect of Namibia offering strategic opportunities in the mining sector, as other mines consider evolving from opencast to underground.

He highlights that Murray & Roberts Cementation is one of very few companies worldwide with the experience and capability to conduct both development work and raiseboring as part of a single package.

“This gives us as the contractor much closer control of our projects, allowing us to reduce our subcontract-related risk,” Widlake concludes.

SMART GAS MONITORING SOLUTION INSTALLED AT MOUNT MORGANS

RUC Cementation Mining and partner InSig Technologies have successfully installed and commissioned InSig’s Smart Gas monitoring solution at the Mount Morgans underground operations.

The Smart Gas solution has several fixed gas-monitoring stations placed throughout the underground mine. These stations provide real-time gaslevel readings to the control room on the surface. Says Barry Upton, RUC Cementation Mining MD: “We are steadfast in our commitment to Zero Harm and Smart Gas provides us with another layer of safety, knowing personnel are not
operating in a hazardous environment underground.”

Another benefit of the monitoring solution is that it allows for quicker re-entry times and staged re-entry to the underground mine workings by eliminating the requirement for personnel to physically
check that each level is clear before opening the workings. Re-entry times are already down by 10%.

The Smart Gas solution comes on the heels of InSig Technologies installing an underground Wi-Fi network at Mount Morgans. The underground network allows for the remote surface control of load haul dumpers, improving safety and productivity while demonstrating the successful application of digital technology in the mining industry. Mount Morgans is owned by Dacian Gold and is located in
Laverton, Western Australia.