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October 2016

MODERN MINING

5

MINING News

Joburg Indaba attracts record turnout

A scene from the recent Joburg Indaba,

held at the Inanda Club in Johannesburg

on 5/6 October. The event, now in its fourth

year and increasingly popular, attracted a

record turnout of around 550 delegates.

Our photo here shows industry experts

discussing ‘Innovation and new technolo-

gies in mining: Mine of the future.’ Pictured

(from left) are Andrew Lane of Deloitte, who

chaired the session; Peter Turner, Senior VP,

Health, Safety & Environment, Sibanye Gold;

Bongi Ntsoelengoe, Technology Manager,

Kumba Iron Ore; Fred Cawood, Director,

Wits Mining Institute (WMI), Faculty of

Engineering and the Built Environment,

University of the Witwatersrand; and

Sietse van der Woude, Senior Executive,

Modernisation & Safety, Chamber of Mines

of South Africa.

Among the many highlights of the

Joburg Indaba was – as most readers will

already know – a courageous address

by AngloGold Ashanti Non-Executive

Chairman Sipho Pityana, who said that cor-

ruption was “spreading like an ugly oil slick

across our society”. He blamed the ANC

government and, in particular, President

Jacob Zuma for this state of affairs and said

“our young democracy is facing its sternest

test yet on a number of fronts.” His views

were well received, earning him a sus-

tained standing ovation from the majority

of delegates.

At a gala dinner on the eve of the

Joburg Indaba, South Africa’s very own

Mining Hall of Fame was launched, bring-

ing the country into line with other major

mining jurisdictions such as Canada, the

US and Australia which have had their

own mining halls of fame for over two

decades. The first inductees – announced

by Bernard Swanepoel, Chairman of the

Joburg Indaba – are Bobby Godsell, Patrice

Motsepe, Sipho Nkosi, Gwede Mantashe,

May Hermanus, Phumzile Mlambo-

Ngcuka, Brian Gilbertson, Mark Bristow and

Barry Davison.

the mine, excluding state revenue derived

from fuel tax.

Bouly is the result of a successful explo-

ration programme which identified a large,

low-grade gold deposit hosting mineral

resources of 3,5 Moz at 0,57 g/t and ore

reserves of 1,3 Moz at 0,56 g/t.

It is located within 5 km of Nordgold’s

Bissa mine on the border of the rural com-

munes of Sabce and Mane, 100 km north

of the capital, Ouagadougou.

Operated by Bissa’s management team,

Bouly is a single open-pit operation.The ore

is crushed with primary jaw and secondary

cone crushers, followed by agglomeration

before stacking on an HDPE-lined pad –

designed by Knight Piesold Australia – for

irrigation with a sodium cyanide leach

solution. Bouly utilises mining equipment

and jaw crushers similar to those in place

at Bissa to standardise stock holding and

optimise maintenance costs.

According to Nordgold, Bouly will ben-

efit from low cost mining operations due

to an excellent average LOM stripping ratio

of 0,7 t/t and straightforward heap leach

metallurgy with superior gold recovery at

83 %. The mine has its own all-season heap

leach facilities with final processing stages,

including desorption, electro-winning and

smelting, taking place at the Bissa process-

ing plant.