The lack of rail lines and other facilities in South Africa’s new coal-rich areas will result in miners having to help fund infrastructure to, from and at the mines they want to start, consulting engineering firm SRK Consulting tells Mining Weekly.

SRK Consulting chairperson Roger Dixon states that transport networks, energy facilities and water resources are among the infrastructural requirements that engineers must take into account when assessing whether a mineral can be economically mined.

“If the State is not able to address these needs, resources are effectively sterilised until a player with deep pockets can invest in these resources,” he says.

Dixon adds that many mines already have to invest substantially in local infrastructure, such as water and power, even if only to complete the last section of a network to the mine site.

“However, transport infrastructure, such as rail lines, are a far larger assignment, and the country needs to actively address this immediately. The construction of new power stations is already under way and efficient transport routes will soon be required to deliver coal to them,” he says.

Dixon points out that the trans- port issue has become increasingly urgent since the National Energy Regulator of South Africa cut State-owned utility Eskom’s proposed price increase in half.

“This will mean that coal miners can expect lower prices from the electricity producer, which will require better infrastructure to allow for more cost-effective delivery,” he says, adding that smaller miners need to join the discussion on how South Africa’s coal will be put to the best use over the coming decades and the models that might be employed to fund the infrastructure this requires.

“For instance, if they are not in a position to directly fund a rail line, State financing may be essential, with tariffs to be levied on rail users to recover the cost. Junior operators need to ensure that these tariffs are affordable and won’t kill their businesses,” Dixon states.

He points out that there are efforts by government to revital- ise the rail network, but these seem to be advancing slowly and without sufficient consultation with business stakeholders.

“The Coal Road Map was a good start, but we should be seeing more progress than we are on this front,” Dixon notes, adding that there should be more consultation with mining organisations and companies to achieve joint consensus on the most urgent needs and solutions.

Dixon states that the country’s universities and other training bodies are working hard to keep up with the demand for skills in mining, but they need as much support as possible from industry and government to do this – particularly in specialised skill areas.

“Our country’s ratio of engi- neers per 1 000 of the population is much lower than many of the developing countries against which we compete. It goes without saying that the quality of learning that matriculants enter- ing university are exposed to needs to be drastically improved if we are to keep our modern economy moving,” he says.

He states that underground gasification should be explored more because the advantages will include improved safety, as there would be no need for workers to go underground.

“The smaller workforce would also contribute to a potentially lower cost structure, with fewer mine maintenance and infrastructure requirements. There would be no waste disposal issues, as waste remains under- ground, and the technology would probably enable the use of resources that are currently not viable using today’s conventional underground mining techniques,” says Dixon.

He says that, on the downside, ground stability will need to be carefully investigated and it is not entirely clear what the environ- mental impacts on, for example, groundwater and the related costs will be.

Dixon notes that common factors constraining production from new coal mining projects are a lack of water to sustain operations and/or a lack of access to the national electricity grid, which is usually cheaper than on-site power generation.

“The delivery of coal, whether to a port for export or to a local power station, is a major cost factor for a coal mine. “A lack of efficient rail systems to transport bulk commodities is a major constraining factor as road transport is gener- ally more expensive, not as safe and has the broader impact of reducing the life span of road surfaces,” he states.

Dixon adds that these constraints will have the effect of either increasing the costs of the coal produced or sterilising a coal deposit entirely by rendering the mining of the deposit uneconomical.

“Lack of effective infrastructure raises the cost of doing business – in this case, mining coal – which, in turn, increases the cost that business and consumers must pay for their electricity.

“As we have already seen in South Africa, this slows general economic growth, stems consumer spending and detrimentally affects all efforts to raise the standard of living,” he concludes.