Landau Colliery is a business unit of Anglo Coal, a Division of Anglo Operations Proprietary Limited (AOPL) and consists of two sections, namely the Kromdraai Section and the Navigation Section.

Throughout the Witbank area a thin succession of Vryheid Formation sediments is present. At their thickest these sediments attain some 120 – 140m and can contain a number of coal seams of which four are considered to have economic potential.

The deposition of the Vryheid Formation sediments is to a great extent controlled by the Pre-Karoo platform on which they deposited. These Pre-Karoo rocks, consisting mainly of Waterberg quartzites or outliners of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, have been glacially sculptured giving rise to uneven basement topography. A thin veneer of Dwyka sediments over lies the pre-Karoo but is generally not thick enough to ameliorate the irregularities in the placated surface, which therefore affected the deposition of the younger Karoo sediments.

The Navigation West Section is situated in the northern part of the Witbank coalfield. The coal measures form part of the Vryheid formation of the Ecca group. All five coal seams, common to the Witbank coalfield, are present in the Navigation West Section area. The No. 4 Seam is suitable for mining by opencast methods. The No. 2 Seam is mostly thin and of moderate to low quality, as are the remaining No. 3, 4U and 4A Seams. The No. 5 Seam ‘sub-outcrops’ near the eastern boundary of the proposed mining area, and although of good quality, is not laterally extensive enough over the Navigation West Section to include in the mining plan.

Kleinkopje Colliery is a multi-product opencast mine situated 10 km south-west of Witbank in the Mpumalanga Province. Five main seams that are numbered in order of deposition from No.1 seam to No. 5 seam are present at Kleinkopje Colliery, this being typical of the Witbank Coalfield1.

The coal-seams are separated by sediments of shale, sandstone and siltstone. The coal reserves of the mine are predominantly found in the No. 1, 2 and 4 seams1. There are limited reserves in the No. 2 Lower and No. 5 seam.

The Kromdraai Section is divided into the Kromdraai opencast mine and the Excelsior mini–pit. It is situated 15 km north-west of Emalahleni and approximately 5 km north of the Navigation Section of Landau Colliery.

The Navigation Section is located approximately 6 km south-west of Emalahleni. It is divided into three areas, namely the Navigation Plant, Schoongezicht No. 2 Seam mini-pit (also referred to as the Schoonie Mini-Pit) and the Navigation West Section (also referred to as Navigation West - Mini-Pit). Navigation West - South Block will be mined by roll-over opencast strip mining methods using a combination of dragline, dozer and truck and shovel methods to extract coal. As part of the opencast roll-over mining method, the spoils are rehabilitated as the mining operation advances, which are maintained so as to ensure that the rehabilitation of the disturbed area is no further than three cuts behind the active mining void.

For each strip, the topsoil, subsoil, and overburden is removed sequentially. Topsoil is removed and stockpiled separately or live placed where permitted for rehabilitation. Not including the boxcut, the subsoils is hauled around the pit, dumped and levelled to backfill previous voids. The hard overburden is blasted into the previous void and moved by combination of Dragline, dozers and truck and shovel to expose coal. The exposed coal is then removed and the No. 4 Seam will be 'split-mined' in a No. 4 Top Seam and No. 4 Select Seam horizons.

The in-pit floor is full of undulations and is also relatively confined and the distances trucks have to travel from the loading area to the tipping area are relatively long (greater than 10 km in certain instances). Five draglines are used at Kleinkopje Colliery for overburden removal.

There are two plants at Navigation Section where coal can be processed and both will be utilised for the proposed Navigation West – South Block Extension Project. The Ngwenya Plant is located within the boundary of the Navigation West Mini pit on Portion 2 of the farm Elandfontein 309 JS. The other plant is the main Navigation Beneficiation Plant located on Portion 23 of the farm Blaauwkrans 323 JS near the old Navigation dump.

Mining at Navigation West Section is currently done at the North and South Block and coal is crushed and washed at the Ngwenya Plant within the boundary of the Navigation West Section.

The layout of Kleinkopje plant commences at the raw coal tipping area, where coal can be tipped either on the A, B or C tip. The tipped material is then sized down to 150 mm through primary crushing Bradford breaker. The oversize is then subjected to a jaw crusher that also reduces the material size to a top size of 150 mm.

The stockpiling is done in chevron pattern to allow proper and even blending of raw material. The bucket-wheel reclaimers are then utilized to reclaim raw coal from the stockpiles through the banana screens which classify coal for the drum plant and cyclone plant silos.

The Wemco drum section is divided into five modules, namely, module 3, 4A, 4B, 5A and 5B. The oversize material reports to Wemco drum plants from which separation according to gravity takes place. After separation, the product and discard material report to their respective drain and rinse screens where medium recovery takes place before the material is transported either to a product or discard silo.