The overburden is removed by blasting and/or using enormous earth moving equipment. The overburden is stockpiled so that after the coal seam has been removed the original overburden can be replaced to reinstate the surface back to as close as original condition as possible as required by the law of the country.

The coal then gets dislodged by blasting and or earth moving equipment producing so-called run of mine (ROM) coal.

Enormous tipping trucks (120 ton capacity) transport the coal from the open pit mine to the coal receiving steel bins which could have a capacity of 400 ton. As these bins sit above ground, road ramps are built for the trucks to reach the tipping level of the bin (16 metres from ground level).

On the top of the bin is a static grizzly which allows the coal that is small enough to be handled by the next process to pass through. Bigger items would be broken above the grizzly when necessary.

At the bottom of the bin is a feeder which assists the coal to be fed into the primary crusher.

The primary crusher breaks the coal down to lumps of a nominal 300mm size at a rate of 1750 tons per hour. From the primary crusher the coal is fed onto a conveyor that moves the material to the crushing building which houses the secondary and tertiary crushers.

The secondary crusher breaks the coal down to 100mm nominal size which then feeds into the tertiary crusher breaking it down further to 50mm nominal size.

The crushers are designed to run 24/7 when the mine is operating at peak production. The crushed coal is then taken to an open circular stacker stockpile with a 60 000 ton capacity. The product is blended at this stage to get a homogeneous mix of coal.

From the stockpile, the material is reclaimed and conveyors take the coal to the coal washing plant.

The coal washing plant sorts the coal into the two products, i.e. coal for Eskom and export quality. Discard coal is transported to waste.

Each product then travels along its own conveyor system. At the Mafube colliery the Eskom coal and export coal go into a linear stockpile system. Each stockpile is about 90 metres long and has a storage capacity of 40 000 tons.

Through a series of coal gate chutes and a 26km long overland conveyor system, the Eskom coal goes to the Arnot Power Station and export coal to a final loadoutstation. At the load-out station there is an export silo which is 60 metres high with a live capacity of 8 000 tons. The loading system is capable of loading 100 train wagons with a capacity of 80 tons each in two hours.