JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A Section 54 order issued to Gold Fields’ South Deep operation by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) on May 27 has been lifted, restoring partial operation at the mine, the company said on Monday.

The DMR issued the Section 54 order after an in loco inspection into the circumstances surrounding two separate fatal accidents on May 17 and May 27, placing a moratorium on all workshop-related activities across the mine, located near Westonaria, and effectively bringing all production to a halt.

Gold Fields said the order was lifted after the completion of a report back to the DMR, in terms of Section 11(5) of the Mines Health and Safety Act, on May 30, subject to the implementation of a number of specific remedial actions and instructions.

Operations resumed in the twin shaft area with the start of the evening shift on Sunday evening and in the South shaft area with the start of day shift on Monday morning.

“Following the lifting of the Section 54 order and the resumption of operations, the focus at South Deep for the next three to four months will be on the satisfactory completion of the secondary support backlog announced last week, with a view to returning the mine to normal production as soon as possible,” said the miner.

Mining Weekly Online reported last week that a comprehensive review of the mine following the recent fatalities had identified that about 1 000 m of legacy ground support in some of the ramps serving production areas in the older part of the mine presented a safety risk.   

At this stage of the build-up process, around 70% of the mine’s production came from these older areas of the mine, above the 95-level, the group said.

“As a consequence, Gold Fields has decided to immediately stop production and destress activities in these areas and to start with remedial work. After personally inspecting the affected areas and consulting with the new mine management team, as well as the Gold Fields board, I have concluded that it would be unsafe to continue working in these areas without remediation,” Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland noted last week.

The remediation would take around four months to complete and was expected to be concluded in September. The impact on production for this year was expected to be a deferral of around 48 225 oz of gold.

Despite the production declines at South Deep, the group’s production guidance of 2.2-million attributable ounces for 2014 was maintained, based on the current and anticipated outperformance of the Peru-based Cerro Corona mine, the Granny Smith mine, in Australia, and the Tarkwa mine, in Ghana.