Technical Information

MORUPULE COLLIERY LTD

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

2. PRODUCTIVITY

	F97	F98	F99	F00	F01	F02	F03
Tons (Thousand)	819	938	719	939	947	953	823
Employees	290	296	298	302	302	317	323
Tons/Man/Year	2824	3169	3215	3110	3136	3006	2547

3. Mining Access and Transport

Access to the coal seam is by an open low dip incline of 7 degrees.

4. Mining Method - Continuous and Conventional

Conventional mechanical bord and pillar mining is practiced and two sections are always equipped at any one time. Because of the thickness of the coal seam at over 8 meters mining is carried out in two distinct phases viz:

Primary Mining

9 -11roads each 6 meters wide are advanced at 18 - 21 meter centers and ±3.0 meters height in the top portion of the seam. A coal roof is left and is systematically roof bolted using resin roof bolts.

Secondary Mining

Once the panel (some 170 - 190 meters wide) has reached its extremity (normally 1250 meters), the roads are retreaded using the bottom coaling technique. Ramps are made down into the lower portion of the coal seam and an additional 2.5 - 3.0 meters is mined. the total height of coal thus taken is 5 - 6 meters giving an overall safety factor of 1.8.

The secondary or bottom coaling method is a very cost effective system because of:

- No second face required i.e. no coal cutting

- No roof bolting.

- Good blasting efficiencies.

Continuous Mining

A Continuous Miner (One section) was introduced in January 2004 to keep the mine abreast with the latest technology, increase productivity and reduce operating cost (unit cost per ton). The mining method remains the same as the conventional primary mining, only that here a Continuous miner is used for coal extraction.

9 roads each 6.5 meters wide are advanced at 23.5 meter centers and 4.2 meters height in the top portion of the seam. A coal roof is left and systematically roof bolted using resin roof bolts.

A Fletcher double boom roof bolter is used for support. The support pattern is 4 x 18mm x 1.2meter roof bolts in a row, and rows are spaced at 1.5mtere intervals.

Continuous mining is a very efficient and cost effective system because of the following:

- No coal cutting.

- No drilling.

- No blasting.

- Shorter cycle times.

- The overall cost per ton is very low.

Overall the cost per ton of coal is competitive to equivalent Southern Africa operations. Productivity per employee however requires to further increase by some 10%.

The mine is acutely aware of its position as a supplier of a primary consumable and this is highlighted in its mission statement.

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