3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Expectations of mining companies and the needs of mining communities in South Africa(2018) Mabikwa, NomathembaThis research study focused on identifying the gap between the expectations of mining companies and communities in relation to development and social responsibility. This qualitative research study focused on trying to understand the alignment or misalignment of the different stakeholder’s expectations. This study was relevant; first, given the recent community unrest in the mining communities; and second, because of the Department of Mineral Resources’ (DMR) focus on community development around the mining towns, with particular emphasis on mines being expected to uplift the communities around the mines. Identifying the gap between their respective expectations would be beneficial for both the communities as well as the mining companies. The benefit to the communities would come in the form of relevant development and assistance being given to the communities. Another benefit would be to the mining companies who face community unrest, yet do not understand the communities’ needs. The research methodology was qualitative; data was collected through interviews with Pilanesburg Platinum Mines (PPM) mine management, questionnaires distributed to community leaders, community influencers and ordinary community members, and semi-structured interviews with activists and mine representatives of other mines. This allowed the identification of further stakeholders that were not in the original proposal. The ordinary community members, randomly selected to understand grassroots expectations, implied that the decisions made by community leaders were not necessarily representative of the community’s needs. The study found that some of the expectations from community leaders were different to those of the activists. Community leaders expected mines to focus on building schools, hospitals, and roads, developing skills, and giving business opportunities to community members, while activists were more concerned about environmental issues, land degradation, pollution of water and air, as well as rehabilitation of the land after the mine had used it. Similarly, the study identified that the government, represented by the DMR, expected the mines to develop the communities, as stipulated in the mines’ SLPs. The mine representatives of other mines experienced unrest in their communities similar to that which was happening at PPM. PPM management, on the other hand, felt that community leaders should have a clear understanding of business processes so as to avoid production disruptions caused by community unrest. Management were of the opinion that proper structures in the community should be formed and used to address issues with the mines. It is clear from the study that the communication between the different stakeholders can assist in closing the gap between the communities’ and mines’ expectations. This in turn would prevent community unrest and subsequent road closures, and enable the mines to operate profitably, and offer employment and development opportunities to the community. Recommendations for each stakeholder group are made in this regard. This research article is inclusive of the requirements of The Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM)Item Alternative funding options for occupational diseases in South African mines(2018) Mushai, AlbertProvision of compensation to victims of occupational disease in the mining industry has been a key policy area in South Africa for decades. Yet in all those years, the common law never featured as a practical option for providing compensation. Workers’ compensation has always been preferred and for good reason. Workers’ compensation internalizes the cost of compensation and converts into a cost of production. In the process, compensation is expeditiously paid and at low cost. In return, there is a general exclusion of common law actions against employers. Accordingly, there is no record of successful litigation against an employer for an occupational disease in South Africa. The unexpected lacuna came in 2011 when the Constitutional Court ruled that mineworkers could sue their employers at common law for occupational disease. Various sections of South African society hailed the decision as a victory for mineworkers. Since then, courts have certified class actions against mining companies paving the way for mass-litigation in local and foreign courts by thousands of former miners. Anyone familiar with occupational diseases in South Africa and compensation thereof would find these developments perplexing. This study assesses the common law as a compensation mechanism and concludes that it is virtually impossible to apply its key elements of causation, fault, harm and wrongfulness to long latency diseases. Application of the common law to long latency disease requires the development of a new branch of jurisprudence as some cases in the UK have confirmed. Furthermore, the common is also associated with a wide range of other practical problems that further cement its unsuitability to deal with compensation for diseases contrary to popular belief. An assessment of alternative options for compensating victims of disease is therefore not only important but also necessary. Among the available options, workers’ compensation is the most ideal for South Africa.Item Re-visiting the link between sustainable development and optimal mining: developing a strategy for growth and development of resource-rich African countries(2018) Debrah, Akua AsamoahFor almost a decade, there was a commodity super-cycle (2002- 2011) that supplied many mineral-rich economies with rents for growth and development. However, on Africa’s account, the impact of such rents on growth has been mixed, with the market economic system taking a fair share of the blame. Due to market inefficiencies and the decoupling of growth from the environment, the concept of sustainable development (SD) emerged as the cure for the ills of the market system. In this light, the fundamental question of enquiry in the thesis was to dissect the linkages between the SD concept and mining in Africa, i.e., to what extent is mining and SD linked in resource-rich African (RRA) countries, when mineral resources are non-renewable, physically unsustainable, and the concept of extraction opposes the idea of sustainability? In dissecting the concept of SD, its definitions and applications to mining were interrogated, firstly teasing from literature the challenges of SD, and using a sustainability assessment framework methodology to devise indicators to measure SD at the national level, vis-à-vis the current interpretation. Four gold producing countries (Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and South Africa) were measured against the indicators to determine progress, and whether the ‘Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development’ interpretation of SD for mining remains appropriate. The findings in the four countries showed that the balancing component’s definition is challenging for true sustainability to be realised. In this bid, the conclusions to the national level assessment pointed to situating optimal mining within the broader view of SD and its inter-linkages. Thus, here, sustainable economic development (SED) was forged as a pivotal goal for optimising SD and mining in RRA economies. Further assessment of what SED means resulted in the development of the ‘Investment Framework for Resource-rich Africa’s Development’ (IFRAD) Strategy as a pathway for Africa’s growth. The IFRAD Strategy consists of a five-step process of: aligning development frameworks; understanding the resource potential of a country; types of mining investments; building critical mining sector linkages; and managing investment options for the future. These are fundamental for net equitable distribution of benefits and realising the goal of SED and growth of RRA economies. The four countries (Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and South Africa) were further evaluated on the IFRAD process with specific lessons and recommendations to determine an implementation plan in realising the Strategy in each country. For mineral economies, a key lesson was re-calibrating mining policies with development and industrial policies, while ensuring that all key sectors are well- coordinated within an industrial policy framework. All in all, the contribution to knowledge is IFRAD’s holistic approach, which ensures that the enabling environment for policy and requirements for mineral development are enhanced for sustainable economic development. The IFRAD process further provides a tool for the measurement of SED, and pathways for net equitable distribution of benefits from mineral wealth. This would be impactful for the management of rents by governments taking into consideration especially the compliance of the broader minerals industry in mining policy implementation.Item A guide for managing the resource model of the copper block-cave at Palabora Mining Company(2018) Bezuidenhout, Johannes JacobusThe renowned PMC’s copper open pit operation transitioned from surface copper operations to an underground operation in 2002. An exploration shaft from within the open pit, having an exploration tunnel below the open pit bottom served ideally for downward resource exploration drilling. Palabora Underground Mining Project was a first to cave in very competent lithology rock types which utilised the crinkle cut method at its undercut level. Unfortunately, the inadequate underground exploration drilling limited the resource classification and confidence levels, having inadequate drilling to represent the vast footprint block cave area. Consequently, the head grade and the modelled grade required annual revisions. The head grade and modelled grades diverted from each other more than once, despite all the numerous studies with minor and significant model improvements. The block model refinements included adjustments made to the block sizes, draw column alignments with blocks and additions such as the dolerite dilution representation within blocks. The resource model revision pointed firstly to the grade change between the mill grades and predicted modelled grade, and secondly to the identified geometric change and rectification thereof. Significant technical studies refined the resource model to satisfactory levels of confidence. However, the elusive cave behaviour encouraged more studies and refinements as new information became available over time. The copper open pit’s north wall failure occurred in 2004, and this failure material contributed to significant resource losses. The importance of the many approaches and models which predicted or assumed the possible block cave’s life after the failure characterises the PMC block cave uniquely. Some of the significant studies over time, encapsulated in this project report sketch a realistic timeline of the copper block cave at Palabora Mining Company. The initial resource losses became somewhat redeemed during the 2015 study where some of the copper gains were within the failure’s glacial flow, and not from the likely toppling effect which injected some additional years to the life of mine.Item A refined resource model for Tshepong mine(2018) Du Toit, RuanThe purpose of this research is to generate a refined Mineral Resource model for Tshepong mine by validating and cleaning the sampling data base that has historically been subjected to hard coded grade capping and by harnessing the assay data of check samples. It is standard practice to chip a check sample at the bottom contact of each underground sample section. An additional experimental variogram value at a lag of 8cm was calculated and used in the modelling of the variograms, improving the estimation of the nugget effect. No recorded reason or justification for the capping was found and the capped values did not have context in current estimations. It was necessary to revert to the original values prior to the application of hard-coded values resulting in a validated, raw and error free sampling database. The geological domains were updated based on updated facies plans and a value trend analyses. Exploratory data analyses were performed within the six newly defined geozones confirming that the domaining was effective and the evidence of stationarity within the geozones was deemed acceptable. Variogram contours maps, at a sampling grid scale as well as at two regularised block grid scales, were used in the modelling of the spatial continuity of the mineralisation within each geozone. Ordinary Kriging is used for estimation into 30m x 30m blocks and kriging neighbourhood analyses were carried out using the sampling grid variogram models. Simple Macro Kriging is used for the estimation into 60m x 60m and 120m x 120m blocks. The refined estimation model was validated by cross-validations (jack-knifing), and comparisons of the grade distributions and mean grades. Reconciliation between the old and the refined model highlighted differences that are interpreted and accounted for. This research contributed towards improving the quality of Mineral Resource model for Tshepong mine by delivering a validated assay database and exploiting the available information and knowledge and the inclusion of recommendations for future Mineral Resource model updates.Item Mine X (Portal C) jointed pillar numerical analysis(2018) Chindedza, TafadzwaMine X is a platinum mine in Southern Africa, mining Platinum Group Elements using the room and pillar mining method. Mine X is currently mining four portals that were named Portal A, Portal B, Portal C and Portal D. A pillar run was experienced at Portal B and it was found necessary to revise the original pillar design for all of Mine X’s portals. All portals at Mine X were originally designed using the Hedley and Grant (1972) pillar design formula. This research focuses on the numerical analysis on Mine X Portal C pillar design. The main objectives being to evaluate the effects of joints and pillar size on pillar strength and to evaluate the appropriateness of the original pillar design. The Universal Distinct Element Code (UDEC) software was chosen to conduct the analysis as it allows for a relatively large number of joints to be incorporated, and also permits to model tensile fractures. Propagation of tensile fractures is a key aspect of the pillar failure process in the model and reality alike. Therefore, significant effort has gone towards reproducing and calibrating this process based primarily on results of laboratory tests conducted on actual rock specimens collated at Portal C. Since the type of modelling carried out in this project is relatively new in rock engineering, a review of the literature was deemed important. A study of existing approaches towards room and pillar designs was conducted so as to understand the mine’s expectation from its original pillar design. Similar work previously done by others was studied and an optimum approach to follow was decided upon. Data was collected from the mine that included test results on specimens, mapping data and pictures showing existing underground conditions. Previous work done on Mine X was also reviewed from which core logging data was obtained. All the collected raw data was processed to come up with information that could be used as inputs into the numerical models. It was decided to model the micro particles of the rock as voronoi tessellation and the cementation between these particles were modelled as voronoi contacts. Voronoi tessellation was essential to model tensile fracturing. Calibration against laboratory results was carried out for the purpose of obtaining voronoi properties that could be used in the model. It was decided to represent the joint network using Discrete Fracture Network (DFN - a statistical description of fractures where a set of statistical parameters are defined and a joint set is generated based on those statistics) instead of explicitly modelling the mapped structures. The modelling process conducted in UDEC required some sensitivity analyses to be done to evaluate the effect of parameters such as velocity and mechanical damping. Three sets of models were run, each set run on three different pillar sizes (2 m, 4 m and 6 m pillar widths). The first set was modelled as an intact pillar and the other two sets were modelled as jointed pillars. Each of the last two sets had a jointing network representing one of the two different geotechnical domains at the portal. The results from these models were compared. The modelling results showed that pillar strength increases with increase in pillar size. Stiffness also increase as pillar width increases. However, a discrepancy was observed on the intact pillars where the 2 m pillar proved to be stiffer than the 4 m pillar. The existence of joints reduces intact pillar strength by 70% to 80%. The existence of the low angle joint sets translates into less stiff, more flexible and more ductile pillars. Mine X is currently mining 4 m square pillars. According to the numerical modelling carried out, these pillars are too small with strengths ranging between 55 and 65 MPa. From the Hedley and Grant (1972) fomula used for the original pillar design, the mine is expecting pillars with average pillar strength of at least 95 MPa from the 4 m pillars. There is need for revising the design criteria and adjusting the mined pillar sizes to about 8 m wide pillars.Item A mineral rights policy framework for promoting the small-scale mining industry in South Africa(1998) Chitsike, TichafaThis study addresses a principal issue associated with the small-scale mining industry in South Africa, namely mineral rights. Firstly it defines a small-scale mine and its role in the South African economy. It then examines the current mineral rights policy and the conditions under which the current mineral rights policy could be reformed in order to encourage the growth of the small-scale mining sector. Various models and proposals have been examined in an attempt to suggest the most suitable policy in terms of acquisition and distribution of mineral rights, Acquisition of mineral rights remains one of the major obstacles facing small-scale mining companies. The need to change the legal framework surrounding the acquisition of mineral rights is clearly demonstrated in this project report. Simplification of the legal framework would lead to easy access to mineral rights by both large-scale and small-scale, South African and foreign mining companies and remove the traditional complexities associated with the current South African mineral rights policy which tend to sterilise mineral rights. These complexities include subdivision of mineral rights, potential lockup of mineral rights by private companies and individuals and the State. Analysis of methods to rationalise the mineral rights policy have demonstrated that nationalisation and expropriation of mineral rights are counter productive and can not be used as vehicles for access to mineral rights. In order to strengthen the small-scale mining industry changes to the mineral rights have been proposed. A model mineral rights policy framework has been designed to promote small-scale mining. Introduction of a mineral fights tax, taking into consideration the specifics of the South African mining industry, similar to that of Swaziland of 1958 is proposed as one of the ways of discouraging the sterilisation of mineral rights. It introduces a cost element in the locking up of mineral rights by private companies and individuals. It is envisaged that when the cost of holding these mineral rights is greater than the benefits of holding the mineral rights, mineral rights holders would relinquish them thereby allowing access to these mineral rights to other interested parties. The relinquished mineral rights should revert to the State, which in tum should allocate them to qualified mining companies. Due considerations of the unique characteristics of the South African mining industry need to be taken into account when designing any mineral rights policy. Implementation of any such policy should therefore be done with the consensus of the mining industry. Access to State mineral rights is also considered vital. Whilst it is important to provide the small-scale mining sector with access to mineral rights it is recognised that the success of the sector depends many factors, mineral rights among others. A holistic approach that take into all facets of small-scale mining are included in the proposed policy framework for the development of the small-scale mining industry in South Africa.Item Sustainability of funding models used in Black Economic Empowerment transactions in the South African mining sector(2016) Nhasengo, AlbertThe purpose of this research is to identify and outline the sustainable funding models for BEE transactions in the South African mining industry. It is proposed that from the early 2000s to 2014 the sustainability of BEE funding models was driven by regulatory pressure. In the absence of regulatory pressure, there would be a need to develop alternative funding models. The study uses a quantitative research methodology by examining the frequency of use of various funding models, the impact of regulatory interventions and use of various funding sources on the sustainability of funding models, regression analysis and significance testing. The research results show that the percentage of third party finance in funding structures has a negative correlation with the success of BEE transactions. Vendor finance shows a positive correlation with the sustainability of transactions, more so above 60% in the funding structures. Equity finance has a positive impact on the success of transactions from as low as 20% in the funding structures. An ideal funding structure would consist of the following funding sources: Third party: Vendor: Equity = 40%: 20%: 40%, in the case of a BEE company that has equity available and Third party: Vendor = <40%: > 60%, where no equity is available to BEE entrepreneurs. In the absence of BEE laws third party finance will dominate funding of empowerment transactions. Funding models based on third party finance must rely more on cash flow based payments rather than dividend payments to service debt.Item Proposals for the regulation of the South African precious metals industries in the light of domestic and global developments(2016) Damarupurshad, Ashok KumarThe Precious Metals Industry in South Africa is highly-regulated compared with other mining and trading countries in the western world which have either deregulated their precious metals industries, have only partial controls or have never seen the need to regulate gold and platinum-group metals specifically. South Africa has a specific Act of parliament, the Precious Metals Act, 2005 (a modification of Chapter 16 of the Mining Rights Act, 1967), that regulates possession, trading and manufacture of precious metals. Apart from the Russian Federation, no other country in the world regulates gold and platinum-group metals possession, trading and fabrication to the extent still done in South Africa. The requirement for such stringent controls was based on the country’s pre-eminence in the production of gold and platinum over the past fifty years, exchange controls (in the case of gold) and the contribution of gold and platinum-group metals to foreign exchange earnings and to the country’s economy as a whole. However, much has changed in South Africa, in the world and indeed in the precious metals industries domestically and globally and this work is the first attempt to discuss and analyse developments and proposals that are impacting on the regulation of the precious metals industries in South Africa. Of these, the World Gold Council’s Conflict-Free Gold Standard provides a case for industry self- regulation to complement, or substitute for government regulation in future. The hypothesis at the Proposal Stage of this study was that the precious metals industry in South Africa is over-regulated and should be deregulated. In this study, this hypothesis is explored and debated. The Resource Nationalism -motivated proposals, including Producer-Country Price for Platinum, OPEC-type trade bloc for platinum, precious metal exchange and single-channel marketing of platinum, were analysed in this study. It was concluded that these are wanting in terms of cost/benefit or problematic in terms of international agreements and trade and competition laws. iii The Precious Metals Act, 2005 itself was also critically analysed with a view to evaluating what could be regulated better or deregulated in the light of recent developments and proposals. It was found, ironically, that the old problem of illegal mining and trading needs to be brought under control before deregulation of the precious metals industry can begin. Nevertheless, in the run-up to deregulation (in an estimated 10 to 15 years), industry self-regulation, co-regulation (with industry) hallmarking, and a re-examination of how beneficiation is promoted should be considered.Item A mineral regulatory regime proposition to support the sustainable exploitation of South Africa's mineral resources(2016-03-15) Mngomezulu, Morake AbielRegardless of the strategic role that mining plays in South Africa‟s economic growth and development, there are perceptions that mining benefits are still enjoyed by a few elite individuals. This is partly due to high expectations from lower level workers in the sector and communities where mining takes place. Failures in the implementation of some of the policies that are social in nature are making people question the wisdom of the current mining legislation, the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA). The main question of this research paper is whether the MPRDA, in its current form, is a suitable mining legislative framework that can usher a better dispensation for all or whether there is a need to overhaul it in order to deliver the desired end results that are expected by the majority of South Africans. It is against this background that this research was undertaken, by studying best practice in other mining jurisdictions and conducting a survey of those involved in the South African mining sector. From the research and surveys, recommendations are proposed on what amendments could be effected on the MPRDA to make the South African mining sector more attractive and simultaneously, meet the citizens‟ expectations.