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South Africa

New Vaal Mine

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Categories

Overview

Mine TypeOpen Pit
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Coal (thermal)
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
  • Dragline
  • Strip mining (roll-over)
Production Start... Lock
Mine Life... Lock

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Seriti Resources Holdings Proprietary Ltd. 90 % Indirect
Seriti Resources Holdings Pty Ltd (‘Seriti’) is a broad based, 91% black owned and controlled South African mining company co- owned by four black anchor shareholders, Masimong Group, Thebe Investments, Zungu Investments (Zico) and Community Investment Holdings (CIH). Seriti Coal Community Employee, and Management Trusts own 10% of the Seriti Resources Holdings Pty Ltd.

Seriti, through its operating subsidiary, Seriti Coal Pty Ltd, operates three large- scale, opencast and underground thermal coal mines namely, New Vaal, New Denmark and Kriel Collieries.

Deposit type

  • Sedimentary

Summary:

The New Vaal colliery coal reserves are located in the northernmost part of the Vereeniging – Sasolburg coalfield in an area locally referred to as the Cornelia coalfield. The coalfield field occurs on the northern edge of the Karoo basin.

The Permian age Ecca Series are part of the Karoo System. The Vryheid Formation of the Ecca Series contains three major coal seams, the Top, Middle and Bottom seams. The Dwyka Series, a sequence of glacial and fluvio-glacial sediments occurs below the coal measures and lie unconformably on the Transvaal System. In the New Vaal area the Transvaal Dolomite underlies the Karoo except for a narrow strip of Black Reef Quartzite that occurs along the eastern edge of the New Vaal mine area.

The Dwyka series is not continuous across the whole area and, in places the coal measures lie on the Dolomite. The contact between the Dolomite and the overlying Karoo rocks is a glaciated surface that was previously affected by structural features of the Dolomite such as doline structures.

Quaternary age river alluvium consisting of unconsolidated basal river gravels, sands, silts and clays were deposited onto the eroded Karoo surface. Wind blown, (aeolian) sand occurs in the upper few metres of this Quaternary sequence that ranges from 4 to 30 metres in thickness.

The New Vaal mine floor is undulating but the overall dip of the coal bearing Ecca Series is 2 to 3 degrees to the south. Two major geological features occur and are significant in the geohydrological regime of the area. These are:
- A dolerite dyke swarm that strikes east west through the northern part of the New Vaal reserves. The swarm zone is up to 60 metres wide and in places individual dykes are greater than 20 metres in width.
- The Viljoensdrift fault, also locally called the Valley fault, is a graben structure that strikes east west and forms the southern boundary of the New Vaal mine and separates it from the old Cornelia Colliery to the south. It has downthrown the Karoo rocks 60 to 100 metres below their original elevation. This graben varies between 1,3 and 2 kilometres in width.

The New Vaal coalfield contains three main coal seams, termed the top (9.7m), middle (6.0m), and bottom (4.9m) seams. Although all three seams had been mined previously, most of the old workings are in the middle seam.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Milling equipment has not been reported.

Processing

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Production

New Vaal mine was acquired from Anglo American in March 2018 by Seriti Resources Holdings Proprietary Ltd.

2018 full year production numbers have not been reported.
CommodityUnits2020 *2019201720162015
All production numbers are expressed as clean coal. * Average annual production reported in 2020

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Heavy Mobile Equipment

Fleet data has not been reported.

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Jan 14, 2024

EmployeesContractorsTotal WorkforceYear
...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required 2021
...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required 2020

Aerial view:

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