Springlake Colliery, which has been in operation for 30 years, is South Africa’s largest producer of anthracite. The underground operation consists of one incline shaft and one vertical shaft with the deepest mining taking place 120 metres below surface. The opencast operation comprises two pits which are mined to an average depth of 30 metres.
The colliery has more than 10 years of mineable proven and probable reserves at a run-of-mine (ROM) production rate of 500,000 tonnes a year and three-and-a-half years of opencast mining at a ROM production rate of 800,000 tonnes a year. The underground mining plan has been revised to develop the northern section of the mine while the recently granted new order mining right for the adjacent Besterdale area adds 500,000 saleable tonnes to the opencast operation, to be mined simultaneously with the Lenteplaas opencast operation.
Springlake accounts for some 47% of South Africa’s anthracite exports. Brazil and Europe are the principal customers of unsized and sized coal. Springlake’s sized products are well suited to domestic heating requirements, as well as selected metallurgical processes. In recent years, Springlake has increased its exports into India as the demand for sized coal continues to grow there.
In addition, Springlake supplies 27% of the anthracite consumed in South Africa which is estimated to be about 890,000 tonnes a year and is on the increase.
Springlake has signed a dollar-based offtake agreement for 350,000 tonnes of its duff material until March 2009. In order to reduce rand volatility and underpin profitability, the mine has entered into forward exchange contracts for 68% of the contracted sales at a rand/dollar exchange rate of R7.36/$.
View the Directors’ review on Springlake in the Annual Report 2008. (PDF – 131KB)
© 2009 Petmin Limited
Springlake will continue to develop niche value-add products for specialist application in its target markets
