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SA mines installing 170 000 safety bolts a day, 200 km safety netting

Sietse van der Woude and Martin Creamer

Sietse van der Woude and Martin Creamer

Photo by Duane Daws

27th November 2013

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s mines are installing net-and-bolt safety systems at a rate of 170 000 safety bolts a day and 200 km of safety netting a day as part of an initiative that last year slashed fall-of-ground fatalities by 80%.

South Africa’s mines are spending R2.2-billion a year on safety bolts and 200 km of netting costs R100-million, Chamber of Mines of South Africa safety head Sietse van der Woude tells Mining Weekly Online.

The local manufacture of safety bolts has created 3 000 South African jobs and the local manufacture of nets another 2 000 jobs.

If placed a kilometre apart, the 170 000 bolts installed daily would cover a distance equal to the circumvention of the earth four times over and the netting installed daily covers the distance from Rustenburg to eMalahleni.

Moreover, these volumes are poised to increase as the nets and bolts are extended to additional areas.

The mining industry is also making great strides with new proximity detection technology that reduces transport risk, the second main cause of mine fatalities after falls of ground, which are by far the biggest single underground killer.

New proximity detection also allows guard car operators to communicate impending danger to locomotive drivers and, if necessary, apply an emergency brake.

“We could have saved 14 lives if just the hard-rock rail-bound equipment alone had been available over the last five years,” Van der Woude added to Mining Weekly Online.

Three months ago, the coal-mining industry’s proximity detection technology saved the life of a Khutala colliery employee when the electromagnetic field generated by the transponder in his cap lamp halted an oncoming shuttle car, after he had collapsed in its path from a medical condition.

In the 12 months to June 30, South Africa’s second-largest platinum-mining company, Impala Platinum (Implats), eliminated fall-of-ground fatalities totally, mainly through the use of nets and bolts, which have been installed on 90% of the Impala Platinum mine’s Merensky reef horizon and in 45% of its upper group two stopes, adding R200-million a year to working costs.

Implats intends providing net-and-bolt protection throughout the mine by year-end.

In achieving its best safety performance ever, Implats increased its alcohol breathalyser tests by 190%, its road behaviour test by 59% and carried out 3 528 safety stoppages, an increase of 51%.

Proximity detection systems have been fitted to 79% of Implats’ trackless vehicle fleet and will also be fitted to all underground locomotives.

Implats’ entire centralised blasting system is being replaced with a safe-blast system and conventional conveyor belts are being replaced by fire-retardant versions.

Van der Woude points out that the nets and bolts and proximity detection systems have come out of the chamber’s mining industry occupational safety and health learning hub initiative aimed at encouraging companies to share best practice.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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