Market News

Mining Charter III: Piling the pressure on small miners

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Created: Wednesday, 30 January 2019 12:47

By Manus Booysen and Rita Spalding, Partners and mining sector experts at Webber Wentzel

Achieving Mining Charter III’s requirements for structuring broad-based ownership, local procurement and social and labour plans is likely to present serious challenges for small scale miners in particular. It may be time to move away from a “one size fits all” approach in setting charter targets.

Several clauses in Mining Charter III, which may be challenging for large mining houses, place onerous, even impossible, responsibilities on small-scale miners.

These miners include some black-owned businesses as well as hundreds of alluvial diamond miners who are members of the South African Diamond Producers’ Organisation (SADPO) a member of the Minerals Council South Africa.

Phase II striding ahead …

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Created: Wednesday, 09 January 2019 10:03

Implementing large scale infrastructure projects combines ‘maths and music’: the maths of delivering multiple highly technical engineering components within a specific timeframe and budget, and the music of the softer skills of diplomacy, communication, social, environmental and community protection, while considering the interests and expectations of multiple, diverse stakeholders. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is no exception to this and while the project is behind the timelines proposed in the Feasibility Report, given the two-year deferred start, Phase II is stepping ahead purposefully.

New Functional Safety for Autonomous Mining Equipment Project

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Created: Friday, 09 November 2018 14:30

Global Mining Guidelines Group’s (GMG) Autonomous Mining Working Group is creating a new guideline to clarify functional safety requirements for autonomous equipment.

The mining industry is embracing automation, but mobile automation technologies are still in the early stages of technology development. As a result, there lacks clear guidance and industry alignment on requirements for managing functional safety. When it comes to requirements for managing functional safety, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are at varying stages of maturity, existing standards are not explicitly developed for automating mining equipment, and regulatory authorities provide little specific guidance. Overall, there is general confusion over which standards to follow, and GMG’s Autonomous Mining Working Group plans to offer this much-needed clarity by developing a guideline on functional safety requirements for autonomous equipment.

Launch of Artificial Intelligence in Mining Working Group

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Created: Friday, 09 November 2018 14:26

Press Release

Global Mining Guidelines Group (GMG) has launched a new Artificial Intelligence Working Group to help demystify AI and enable the mining industry to harness its many valuable applications.

GMG’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Working Group launching today (November 8) with a workshop hosted by IBM in Perth, Australia. It is a culmination of several brainstorming and breakout sessions held at GMG events over the past six months. This topic has been met with extensive support from GMG members and industry participants who want an open forum for discussion and growth around AI and to explain its applications and requirements for mining. “The launch of this AI Working Group” says Andrew Scott, GMG Vice-Chair Working Groups and Principal Innovator at Symbiotic Innovations, “is another example of where the industry has raised an issue and GMG has taken up the challenge.”