The Tshepong operations constitute an integrated mining complex in the Free State, near the town of Welkom, some 250km from Johannesburg. The deep-level workings include the Tshepong and Phakisa underground sections. The proximity of these two mines has allowed for the integration of operations, facilitating the use of excess hoisting capacity and underused infrastructure at Tshepong section and debottlenecking Phakisa’s constrained infrastructure. Harmony plans to mine the orebody at the Tshepong Operations for the next 20 years.
Conventional undercut mining methods are used at the mature Tshepong section; Phakisa uses the newer conventional undercut and opencut mining method. From Phakisa the rock is transported to the Nyala shaft, where it is hoisted to surface. The principal gold-bearing orebody exploited by both sections is the Basal Reef, with the B Reef mined as a high-grade secondary reef. Mining takes place between 1 500m to 2 300m below surface. Ore mined is processed at the Harmony One plant, where the gold cyanide leaching process is used to recover the gold.
OPERATING PERFORMANCE FY21
Three fatalities during the year prompted a focus on fall-of-ground golden controls, installing additional permanent steel netting and finding a solution to secure these nets close to the to eliminate further fall-of-ground injuries. The lost-time injury frequency rate deteriorated by 8% to 5.44 per million hours worked (FY20: 5.05).
Once again Tshepong operations made the largest contribution, at 16%, to group production; in the absence of lockdowns, operational results improved markedly, which reflected in the financial performance. Capex was 20% higher at R1.1 billion, mainly to provide for development work underground and plant optimisation on surface.