sasol to apply for waterberg coal mining licen

Hi all


Another company wants to mine coal in Waterberg.



22nd May 2012



TRICHARDT, Mpumalanga (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s third-largest coal producer, Sasol Mining, has received approval from its group executive committee to apply for a mining licence in the Waterberg, where it plans to erect a small-scale colliery that will be used as a future growth vehicle.

Sasol Mining MD Hermann Wenhold tells Mining Weekly Online that the plan is to begin with a relatively small mine and make the coal available to one of its joint venture partners for both export and domestic use.

“From a growth perspective, Sasol has realised that there are mining growth opportunities in the Waterberg, but it’s still very early days,” Wenhold adds.

He says Sasol Mining also has growth capacity at its colliery at Sasolburg in the Free State.

Where the coal-mining arm of the integrated global coal-to-liquids company is growth constrained is at its five coal-mining operations that serve the Sasol Synfuels factory at Secunda, in Mpumalanga.

“To grow from this complex is not part of the Sasol Mining mandate,” says Wenhold.

He was speaking to Mining Weekly Online at the media conference that followed the inauguration of new R3.5-billion Thubelisha shaft at the Twistdraai colliery, in Mpumalanga, by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu.

Sasol Mining produces to synfuels’ demand and all the coal mined at Sasol Mining’s five mines is used for the manufacture of synthetic fuel, except for the three-million tons of coal mined within the Twistdraai colliery complex, which is exported.

The current plan is for Sasol Mining to mine coal for synfuels to the year 2050.

Sasol Mining chairperson Nolitha Fakude, who is an executive director of Sasol, says Sasol’s plans to build a synfuels plant in the Waterberg as part of Project Mafutha are still on hold, pending water infrastructure developments within the Limpopo province and the resolution of carbon footprint issues.

The Sasol standpoint continues to be that it needs to understand the future regulatory framework around carbon capture and carbon tax before it can go ahead with carbon-to-liquids projects.

Sasol’s conversion of coal into liquid transport fuels dramatically reduces South Africa’s reliance on crude oil imports and provides a positive impact of some R24-billion a year on South Africa’s balance of payments.


http://www.miningweekly.com/article/sasol-to-apply-for-waterberg-coal-mining-licence-2012-05-22


Good luck to all that hold RES