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.

The No. 4 Seam dips predominantly to the east, but also to the west (in the extreme west) as it is draped over a regional Pre-Karoo basement high. It is over the western part of the area that the No. 4 Seam is completely weathered as a result of its close proximity to surface. This ‘no coal’ area forms a major indent into the South Block and had a defining influence on the mining layout possibilities. Figure 15 shows a typical borehole log demonstrating the geological stratigraphy in the Navigation West Section.
The topography to the west, influenced by the upper reaches of the Grootspruit valley, dips fairly steeply towards the west, resulting in a sub-outcrop of the No. 4 Seam. To the east, the various seams dip at about 30 minutes towards the Greenside Colliery underground reserves, where all of the major seams have been preserved and mined to some extent.

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 No. 4 Seam in the Navigation West - South Block consists of a low quality upper section and a higher quality lower section referred to as No. 4 Select Seam. In some areas of the pit the 5 seam is present. The No. 5 and No. 4 Top Seam is loaded, crushed and transported to Eskom, or one of the municipalities generating their own power e.g. Rooiwal. The lower No. 4 Select Seam is loaded and crushed prior to being hauled to the Navigation West Beneficiation Plant for processing aimed at the 5850 export market.

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.