South Africa’s coal mining sector is undergoing a significant transformation. The traditional model of large, centralised mines with massive 2 000 t/h coal handling plants is giving way to smaller, more flexible, multi-pit operations.  

The local mining industry is revisiting deposits that were previously considered uneconomical to mine, owing to the depletion of historical, high-quality coal mines, says crushing and conveying equipment specialist TAKRAF South Africa ahead of attending this year’s twenty-first International Coal Preparation Congress at the Sun City Convention Centre from October 12 to 16. 

The premier international conference is dedicated to advancing coal preparation practices and technologies such as the TAKRAF Bradford Breaker. This technology simultaneously cleans and sizes raw coal and is well suited to process low-quality coal, highlights TAKRAF South Africa product line manager Maurice Malaza.

The bradford breaker removes impurities from coal in the first processing stage. This reduces the size and wear on the downstream plant. 

“Owing to the focus on lower-grade coal deposits in South Africa, we have had increased enquiries for smaller machines from small-scale and junior miners. There is also greater demand for semi-mobile or mobile machines as the life-of-mine of these pockets of resources aren’t long – potentially five to eight years instead of 30 plus years,” says Malaza.

In response, TAKRAF Group recently introduced small modular plants to meet the demand for flexible solutions that can be easily relocated once a specific resource is depleted.  

Malaza highlights that with the bradford breaker supplied under licence from Terrasource Global in the US, the solution has been modified to handle Africa’s harsher thermal coal mining conditions as opposed to the softer coal found in America.

While South African and Botswanan coal mines are the primary drivers for TAKRAF Coal Breakers and TAKRAF Coal Granulators in Africa, TAKRAF South Africa Capital Sales and Marketing Manager George Jacob says there is considerable interest for the company’s crushing, conveying and stockyard equipment in general from copper and gold operations in Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.

“We are also active in West Africa, working on various mine expansion projects – driven by the commodity price – boosting demand for our bulk material handling equipment as well as our liquid/solid separation equipment under our DELKOR brand. On the crushing side, TAKRAF Sizers are increasingly being used by iron-ore, bauxite and gold mines because of the wet orebodies found in the region.”

Aiding Sustainability

With greater demand for more sustainable mining operations, TAKRAF Group’s focus on sustainability, especially through its in-pit crushing and conveying systems, is a strong example of how mining equipment manufacturers are adapting to the global push for carbon neutrality. 

“Where clients previously depended on yellow machines to move ore from the pit to the crusher’s location, miners can now use a conveyor to transport ore to their processing plants. This not only reduces carbon emissions and speeds up processing time but also saves on diesel costs,” Jacob informs.

Further, he highlights that many of the company’s designs have evolved around aftermarket support and the maintainability factor. 

This is particularly true of TAKRAF Sizers which were originally developed for hard rock mining, with the capacity to handle up to about 200 MPa and potential peaks of 240 MPa.

“The advantage of procuring this type of crusher is especially noticeable in an underground operation, where the height, weight and ease of maintenance is an important consideration that many competitors don’t factor into their designs,” says Jacob. 

He adds that AI and digitalisation are also being incorporated into the Group’s equipment to identify operating trends and aid continuous condition monitoring and remote real-time decision-making.

For example, TAKRAF Group has replaced conventional drives on its bradford breakers with variable speed drives.

“This upgrade allows the drive speed to be adjusted to match the actual load requirements. Doing so prevents unnecessary power consumption, improving energy efficiency,” elaborates Malaza.

“Through our adoption of digital advancements, clients can remotely inspect equipment while it is being built on the manufacturing floor from anywhere in the world for quality assurance purposes.” 

A 300-year-old organisation, TAKRAF Group works across several commodities in various global mining jurisdictions and has a wealth of experience in delivering turnkey bulk material handling solutions for underground and opencast mining.