

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.