MINING
For one of the poorest areas in South Africa , Palabora Mining Company ( PMC ) is a lifeline . Faced with closure in recent years it is now secured for the next two decades – and is working to leave a positive legacy for much longer
The great Palabora copper mine could well be history by now . At the time of the global financial crisis in 2008 , the implementation of an expansion plan to extend the mine ’ s life for a further 20 years was in doubt . The high copper volumes obtained from the original open cast mine , which created the ‘ biggest hole in South Africa ’ having been largely exhausted , and the ‘ Lift I ’ underground mine , whose production capacity reached 30,000 tonnes of ore per day , was nearing the end of its life . A number of years later Palabora ’ s other main product , iron ore in the form of magnetite , was also in decline as world mineral prices plummeted . The simple fact that today Nick
Fouché is in his position as General Manager for Growth and Major Projects Delivery at Palabora Mining Company ( PMC ) shows that this situation has changed radically .
In 2011 Fouché was working in Salt Lake City with the Capital Projects Group of the mine ’ s then principal shareholder Rio Tinto when he was asked to lead an ‘ order of magnitude ’ study at Palabora as part of a process to determine whether the massive investment that would be needed to open up a deep mine below the one we have mentioned , would be feasible . “ Because we had good drill results and good modelling from previous years we were able to run that study in a nine months as opposed to the couple of years it would normally
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