South Africa’s Wescoal performs its first coal blast at the Moabsvelden mine in Delmas, Mpumalanga, leading to its first coal delivery to utility company Eskom on March 12. (Photo: Wescoal)
South Africa’s Wescoal performed its first coal blast at the Moabsvelden mine in Delmas, Mpumalanga, leading to its first coal delivery to utility company Eskom on March 12. The project development work started in June 2020 pursuant to a 10-year coal supply offtake award by Eskom in July 2019.
“The operationalization of the Moabsvelden project under a difficult operating economic environment represents a significant milestone in the history of Wescoal, since the acquisition of Keaton Energy in 2017,” Wescoal Mining CEO Thivha Tshithavhane said. “The first truck load to the power utility was a momentous event for everyone involved in the project implementation.”
Moabsvelden is expected to contribute 3 million metric tons per year (mt/y) toward Wescoal’s total production capacity. It presents a new growth opportunity for all our key stakeholders, namely shareholders, employees, and communities, Tshithavhane explained.
The early-works auxiliary infrastructure projects have been completed. Additional development workstreams planned for the next few months include a road intersection, weighbridge, workshop and office prefabs construction. These will support the ramp-up plan to 160,000 mt per month of saleable product by July 2021.
