Modernisation can save lives of miners — but up to a point
Modernisation of mines can save lives. But SA’s deep, steep and narrow ore bodies do not lend themselves to the desired change. This is especially true for mines owned by JSE-listed Sibanye-Stillwater, which again came into focus this week with the death of yet mine worker.
The company now accounts for 21 out of 47 fatalities recorded in 2018. Sibanye is the biggest player in SA’s gold and platinum mining sector as other mining giants sold off ageing and increasingly troublesome mines. It’s logical that Sibanye, which is also the largest employer in mining, would record more fatalities. Even so, the high number of incidents is out of proportion.
Department of Mineral Resources figures show gold and platinum mines to be the deadliest, accounting for 82% of mining industry deaths in 2017.
This is not unusual. Gold has always accounted for the most fatalities in SA and as the similarly narrow-bodied platinum mines age, they have increasingly contributed to the death toll. Prof Frederick Cawood, director of the Wits Mining Research Institute, believes that modernisation will save lives in mines, but converting Sibanye’s operations to 21st century mines is by no means a “light switch”, he says.
Cawood and the institute are working on several projects with Sibanye that “will continue to put distance between workers and risk”, he says.
This includes technology that would improve communication and ground mapping and will ultimately reduce the risks faced underground.
Sibanye says various technologies have been adopted in past years to improve safety. The introduction of pedestrian detection systems for its trackless mining fleet and locomotives, for example, has presented a “marked benefit”.
Modernisation is the future, says Cawood, but he notes the technologies that might assist Sibanye are not yet proven in these “harsh environments”.
The company describes this as “deep-level mining in a constrained environment, with severe rock pressure, a lack of ventilation and extreme heat, which creates an obviously dangerous environment”.
One project that would improve underground air quality is about three years away from implementation, Cawood says. However, modernisation of a mine is distinct from mechanisation. At Sibanye, wherever machines can replace humans in dangerous environments, this has already been done. Ironically, the intersection between man and machine was the cause of the latest death at its Khomanani mine on Tuesday when a worker was caught in the path of a scraper — a mechanised “bucket” used to move broken ore. It operates within a specially excavated scraper path.
Sibanye says the complexity of the machinery and systems needed to mechanise “deep level, steeply dipping, tabular orebodies” poses a significant challenge — one that is specific to SA and which the company is yet to overcome.
But even if anticipated tech were in place, could it have prevented any of the fatalities at Sibanye in 2018? Apart from the lone worker who found himself in the path of the scraper, two others perished in a rockfall and a mudslide, respectively. Two other lives were lost in a mudslide and four of the seven trapped after seismic activity did not make it out alive.
Sibanye says there is evidence that several incidents are behavioural and would not be prevented by technology.
This is in spite of its significant investment in organisational culture focused programmes, designed to improve safety.
Cawood says a new technology cannot predict earthquakes, a major cause of accidents. That is knowledge yet to be acquired, he says.
Some 64,000 employees and countless other dependants who rely on these South African mines for their livelihood remain a compelling reason to continue efforts to modernise the carcasses of gold and platinum mines.
But in a bygone era, before the potential of tech, these operations would have surely been left for dead.
DEPARTMENT OF MINERAL RESOURCES FIGURES SHOW GOLD AND PLATINUM MINES ACCOUNTED FOR 82% OF DEATHS IN 2017