Name: Sishen mine.

Location: In the Northern Cape, South Africa, near the town of Kathu.

Mine Owner/s: Sishen Iron Ore Company, a 76.3% subsidiary of Kuma Iron Ore, a subsidiary of Anglo American.

Brief Description: Sishen is Kumba’s flagship operation and one of the biggest openpit mines in the world, about 14 km long.

Sishen is the only hematite ore producer in the world to beneficiate all its product.

The operation currently has a mine life of 15 years.

Brief History: The Sishen mine was established in 1953.

Primary Metals/Minerals: Iron-ore, comprising two lump and two fine product types of varying grade.

Secondary Metals/Minerals: None stated.

Geology/Mineralisation: In the vicinity of Sishen mine, high-grade hematite iron-ore is found in the upper parts of a Lake Superior-type banded iron formation of the Griqualand West Supergroup.

As a result of the long geological time interval between the deposition of the oldest rocks of the Griqualand West Supergroup, the Campbellrand Dolomite, and the youngest rocks in the area – the Kalahari Group sands, several uplift and erosion cycles and deformational events are recorded in the rock record.

The iron-ore deposits mined at the Sishen mine are located on the western flank of the Maremane Anticline, which strikes north–south and dips shallowly west.

Local structures in the mine area are, however, very complicated and the relationship between the various tectonic events and associated geological structures were critical to the formation and preservation of the ore. In general, the high-grade laminated and massive ore is preserved in synclinal and pseudograben structures, which are the result of several deformation events.

Medium- and lower-grade conglomeratic and brecciated ores are preserved within deep palaeo-sinkhole structures in the southern portions of the deposit, where these structures are the result of the karstification of the underlying dolomites during periods of uplift and erosion.

Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2020, were estimated at 571.9-million tonnes grading 57.9%.

Resources: Total measured, indicated and inferred resources, in addition to ore reserves, were estimated at 561.5-million tonnes grading 53.6% iron as at December 31, 2020.

Mining Method: Conventional drill-and-blast and truck-and-shovel openpit.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: Run-of-mine (RoM) material is processed through two processing facilities: a dense-media separation (DMS) plant and a jig plant, which includes a modular ultrahigh dense-media separation (UHDMS) facility on a portion of the jig plant discard stream. The combined RoM capacity of the processing facilities is 47-million tonnes a year (26-million tonnes a year for the DMS plant and 21-million tonnes a year for the jig plant).

Prospects: A further UHDMS project was approved in February 2021 and offers the potential to enhance product quality and the potential to extend the Sishen life-of-mine to 2039.

Contact Details:
Kumba Iron Ore
Tel +27 12 683 7000
Website https://www.angloamericankumba.com