Walking the world�s richest ground, in Botswana
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday April 15, 2016 12:20
How far can you see? On a clear day, over flat land? How far do you reckon you could see?
At Jwaneng Mine, you can see 410 metres away with sparkling clarity. From the top of the mine pit to the bottom, where rainwater collects and is coloured blue by the diamond-bearing rock around it, the distance is 410 metres.
From the top of the pit, haul trucks, which stand about eight metres tall, nine metres wide and 15 metres long, look like cast-iron toys as they move about hundreds of thousands of tonnes of kimberlite, the diamond ore from which further processing recovers the precious stones.
Jwaneng Mine has 130 of these 300 tonne-plus trucks, and together with all manner of other gigantic earthmovers and loaders, the landscape here feels distinctly otherworldly.
Last year, Jwaneng Mine produced 9.8 million carats or the equivalent of nearly 2,000 kilogrammes of stones, many of them of grades inimitable across the world. This year, the mine is targeting 12 million carats or about 2,400 kilogrammes of high quality stones destined to be sorted in Botswana, before being cut, polished and sold, mainly after being prepared into jewellery, worldwide.
Since 1870, the earth has yielded 5.2 billion carats and after its official opening in 1982, Jwaneng has contributed a considerable amount of these, comprising some of the consistently highest quality seen.
Along with other journalists, I am at the Jwaneng Mine pit at the invitation of Debswana, and walking around the mounds of crushed waste and ore, I am overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the mining operation.
The Jwaneng Mine pit is 410 metres deep, two kilometres long and 1.4 kilometres wide and around the clock, teams made up almost exclusively of Batswana, drill near the bottom, plant explosives and blast the rock which bears the small, shiny stones.
Millions of tonnes in ore are then hauled off in the massive trucks and put through a high-tech, Debswana-patented processing system that eventually squeezes out stones even the size of coarse salt.
In between blasting days, ore removal is ramped up and the 300 tonne trucks snake up from the bottom, on roads carved into the side of the pit, each trip lasting more than an hour, to take their loads to the processing plants.
While Jwaneng has four exposed pipes or vertical mineral distribution areas, nearly all the diamonds being mined now come from the centre pipe. In 2015, Jwaneng alone contributed 33 percent to De Beers’ global production and the centre pipe made up most of these numbers.
My eyes, straining as they are to the depths of the pit, are also looking for something else.
Something even more spectacular than the numerous benches cut into the side of the pit to improve stability, with some of them also expanded into roads for the trucks and other equipment.
I’m looking for a section of the mine pit, which should be a hive of activity. In fact, the hive of activity is worth P24 billion over 10 years and involves stripping away at least 500 million tonnes of waste to expose 110 million more carats in diamonds.
How far can you see? Well, after the expansion project known as Cut 8 is finished, future visiting journalists will see to a depth of 650 metres from a mine pit that will then measure 2.7 kilometres long and 1.8 kilometres wide.
Since Cut 8 began in 2010, 344 million tonnes of rock and soil have been removed, with 70 percent of this amount being removed in the last three years.
The diamond-bearing rock is expected to be fully exposed in 2018, allowing mining to begin and thus relieving the current mining operations.
But as my eyes scan the depths of Cut 8, a mining engineer accompanying the journalists, drops a bombshell. The Cut 8 waste mining has already encountered kimberlite or diamond-bearing ore.
Jwaneng Mine general manager, Albert Milton confirms the revelation.
“We are encountering ore in the South (of the Cut 8 area) already,” he says.
“We are not far from reaching ore in the North and in the next couple of weeks we should be encountering it there too.
“We will continue exposing limited amounts throughout 2016 and 2017, but by 2018 we will be fully in the ore.”
Milton walks proudly through the mounds of waste by the mine pit, patiently explaining and re-explaining mining procedures, while occasionally giving passing Debswana workers nods of encouragement.
He addresses many by their first names and nicknames, creating the impression of close camaraderie among Jwaneng Mine’s workers, despite the various levels of hierarchy.
“This is one of the best run operations across the group in the world,” he says of his team and its systems.
“It’s also highly localised at every level.”
The efficiency of operations at Jwaneng Mine are the main reason Debswana is focusing on it for this year. As part of efforts to strictly ‘mine to demand’ Debswana has reduced its forecast for 2016 production from 21 million carats to 20 million, in order to reduce the oversupply of polished stones upstream, a situation which weakened rough prices in 2015.
In order to reduce production, Debswana will up production at Jwaneng Mine “which is a high value, low cost asset” while reducing production from Orapa and Letlhakane. Production has already been suspended at Damtshaa.
I ask Milton if he feels the pressure being singled out for higher production and performance this year and he shrugs off the question.
“We are highly honoured to carry the group. With the people we have here, we are doing very well in terms of production already this year,” he says.
Milton plans to cut operating costs by at least three percent at Jwaneng this year, through initiatives aimed at cutting costs ranging from tyres for the haul trucks to savings in drilling and blasting. Already the most efficient operation in the group, Jwaneng will further tighten its belt this year.
How far can you see? Milton, his technocrats at group level and his team at ground level see very far.
Where we can imagine Cut 8 reaching 650 metres, Milton and his team are already seeing a pit depth of 1,000 metres, a level that would propel Jwaneng far up the list of the world’s top 10 deepest open pit mines.
That level would likely be reached under Cut 9, a project to further deepen and expand Jwaneng. Approval for this has already been granted and work is ongoing.
When it comes to seeing far, it appears few can measure up to the technocrats at Debswana who see beyond current and envisaged pit depths, right into the future in their plans for diamond production. Few of those walking around the pit today, can even imagine.