Pan African’s Evander on schedule for mid-April restart

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Pan African Resources on Monday reported that the refurbishment of the 7 and 8 Shaft complex at its Evander mines was progressing on time and within the R40-million budget.

The company, led by CEO Cobus Loots, expects the refurbishment programme to be completed on April 15.

The programme entailed the replacement of the 7 Shaft pump columns support infrastructure; the replacement of a damaged section of the main pump column at the 7 shaft; the replacement of the water reticulation system between the 7 and 8 shafts; the removal of redundant shaft steelwork at the 7A and 8 shafts; and repairs to the 7 and 7A shaft bottoms.

The programme also includes an assessment of all other underground infrastructure that is critical to maintaining and sustaining production.

Evander Mines’ 7A shaft, which is used for rock hoisting, has also normalised hoisting speed to 13 m/s, after this was reduced to 8 m/s for repairs.

During the refurbishment period, on-mine management also focused on the preparation of the Evander Mines’ underground mining areas for mining restart.

Underground mining operations at Evander will restart with the hoisting of about 6 000 t of mined ore currently stored within the underground infrastructure. The processing of these tonnes will assist with the expeditious ramp-up of its underground production profile.

Meanwhile, Pan African expects to complete the retrenchment of about 976 employees within the next month.

The company last month announced that it had reached a retrenchment agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers for the retrenchment of 976 of the Evander Mines' 2 400 employees, to reduce the underground operation’s fixed cost base once mining restarts.