New CE of global mining giant Anglo American and South African Chamber of Mines president Mark Cutifani is assessing the group’s portfolio to establish whether the company is realising the full potential of its diversity and how to better deliver on that potential.

Anglo American is one of the largest mining companies in the world and is active in platinum, diamonds and iron-ore, as well as coal mining projects worldwide.

“Over the next three to four months, I will be looking at the commodities we’re in – do they make sense and are they the right commodities for the future? I will look at the assets – are they competitive, are they as good as they could be and should we be doing things differently to realise value?” Cutifani stated during an interview with The A Magazine.

Further, he said he would also assess the company’s balance sheet to establish whether the company had the capacity to realise that value and whether it operated in a flexible way to make the required changes to achieve that value.

Cutifani noted that the global mining industry faced some significant challenges. “In terms of water, energy and commodities, the world is short.”

This problem is exacerbated by South Africa’s own coal shortages and coal being a critical input in the country’s electricity production. State-owned power utility Eskom estimates that it will need about 4.1-billion tons of coal to supply its power stations until 2051.

Further, owing to the lack of alternative energy sources, such as hydroelectrical or nuclear power, South Africa’s need for coal and coal mines is constant, as it relies heavily on coal-burning power generation facilities.

Anglo American Thermal Coal’s Greenside colliery, its most productive mine for the last six years, may be an indication of how collieries providing coal for Eskom power generation plants can increase productivity.

According to Mining Consultancy Services South Africa, three of the Mpumalanga-based colliery’s sections are ranked in the top five highest-producing underground continuous miner sections in South Africa.

The George section of the colliery reached the million-ton mark in December 2012 without recording a single safety incident. This achievement was closely matched by the Thandeka and Vumagara sections, neither of which recorded a safety incident.

The Greenside colliery is also at the forefront of technological developments on the continent, with the Vumagara section boasting the first flexible conveyor train, a system that continuously hauls and eliminates bottle- necking, which is common among underground continuous miners and shuttle car operations. This ultimately allows modern, high-production continuous miners to operate at maximum capacity.

The Greenside colliery yielded 116 708 t in September 2012 – the highest monthly yield of any colliery outside the US – and all coal is currently sent to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, in KwaZulu-Natal, for export.