“ We had to leverage the existing shaft infrastructure , and build a second bock cave under the existing one , connect them all up and still make a positive business case out of it !”
MINING
– Nick Fouché
on the rise . To develop an underground copper mine takes many years ,” he adds . Four years from now PMC may face competitive supply in an improving world minerals environment .
Cutting the cloth But copper prices are still low and Palabora needs to guard its margins . One way it is doing this is by taking out cost and using local contractors where possible . Byrnecut was successful but cost was dollar based and potential existed for a lower cost approach , so in March it was decided to change to a small South African company Mvuso which would have a lower cost base . “ The goal was to share our knowledge and help them to reach a competitive mining rate . We have a lot of in-house expertise : we have been tunnelling with Byrnecut for more
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