Modern Mining September 2018

SHAFT SINKING AND RAISEBORING

with our Bentley Park Training Academy near Carletonville – which is equipped with four mock- up shafts – ranking as a truly world-class training centre. “In short, we’re able to tackle multiple shafts at the same time without our human resources being over-stretched. We’ve done this in the past and are continuing to do so now. In addition, we’re also able to assist our sister companies. We are, for example, helping our Australian company to ‘crew up’ for its Mongolian contract. We recognise the importance of having top-class people and this will continue to be a hallmark of Murray & Roberts Cementation going forward.” 

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another OEM on a system which will allow us to gauge very accurately how the cutters on our machines are performing and when they need to be changed.” Turning to decline development and the oft-touted ability of Australian contractors to outperform their South African coun- terparts, Widlake says he disagrees with this assessment. “If you look at some of our achievements in Zambia, where we’re outside the South African regulatory envi- ronment, we perform to the same level as the Australians. We have used Australian operators in the past, we’ve transferred the skills they have and our people are now able to compete with the Australians metre for metre.” Finally, Widlake refutes the widely held view that shaft-sinking skills are in short supply and that this imperils the future of the shaft-sinking industry. “I can’t speak for other companies but this is certainly not true for Murray & Roberts Cementation. The sheer number of shafts we’ve sunk over the years and the fact that we’ve managed to maintain a constant flow of shaft-sinking work means that we’ve been able to keep our teams together. The result is that we have a generous reservoir of shaft-sinking skills – at all levels – within the company,” he argues. “Moreover, we have some of the best training facilities within the industry The new shaft-sinking system deployed for the VUP involves the use of ‘sling down’ vertical drill rigs (VDRs), one of which is seen here.

September 2018  MODERN MINING  39