South Africa's platinum miner Wesizwe says the use of two underground mine shafts at its Bakubung mine in the North West province was seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The impact of COVID-19 means that we've had to, for social distancing purposes, re-arrange our allocated times for transporting mineworkers underground and returning them to surface," company general manager Jacob Mothomogolo was quoted as saying by Mining Weekly.
"Our main carriage for mining material is a single carriage designed for 160 people. Because of the lockdown and social distancing requirements, we've reduced that capacity and transport to only 30 people at a time."
The main shaft has a hoisting capacity of 250 000 t of ore and 15 000 t of waste a month.
He said the additional cost of COVID-19 management was significant, and they have put a budget aside specifically for that in the 2021 allocation to deal with the pandemic management requirements.
"The realisation, however, that COVID-19 is likely to stay means that we're preparing to create additional resources for spare capacity to cater for absenteeism, especially for production teams," said Mothomogolo.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
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