MINING PRODUCTION
Underground complex key to South Deep’s mechanisation
Piped music and air conditioning for a small team of engineers and mechanics working in a brand-new warren of workshops 2.7km underground at South Deep is one small indication of the changes at the R29bn mine that Gold Fields has struggled to bring to account over the past decade. The mollycoddling of the mechanics is more than just Gold Fields allowing its employees a degree of comfort in what are dangerous and uncomfortable conditions. It goes to the very heart of what management wants to achieve, injecting nearly R3bn more into a mine it bought in 2007 to bring it to profitable, completely mechanised production over the next six years. The new plan will deliver far less gold than previous plans indicated, but analysts Leon Esterhuizen from Nedbank and Derryn Maade from HSBC say it is realistic and achievable. An initial plan pegged output as high as 800,000oz a year by 2014, with a revision to 680,000oz a few years later. In 2017, it has been reduced to 500,000oz, using purely me...
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