FACULTY OF ENGIEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

INDUSTRIAL TRANING REPORT ITB 200

Project name: DEBSWANA ORAPA MINE-ORAPA

Training Period: 18 June – 03 August 2018

Name: Kedikilwe Billy

ID: 201602407
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

Certified that this is the bonafide project work and report of Mr. Billy Kedikilwe

ID No: 732811910 Student No.201602407 of Title: Industrial Training Report

Required for the successful completion of the Bachelor of Engineering Degree

Date of completion of the Report: Sign:

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DISCLAIMER

While utmost care has been taken in the preparation of this research report to provide reliable
information, the author shall not be liable for any decision or action taken based on or arising
from the use of such information.

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Table of Contents
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

DISCLAIMER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

VEHICLE MONITORING SYSTEM

LOAD AND HAUL

DRILL AND BLAST

DEMARCATION

MAGAZINE

FRACTURE

BLASTING PROCEDURE

SURVEY

GEOTECHNICAL SECTION

GEOLOGY

Grade Control

On a Daily Basis

SHORT TERM PLANNING

PLANT APPRECIATION

RECOMMENDATIONS

CONCLUSION

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author sends his high regards to the University of Botswana and Debswana Mining
Company who made spending two months in the Orapa mine possible.

This project would not have been possible without the help of the following people:

Mr. Stephen Williams for making it possible for me to be attached at the Orapa Debswana
Company.

Mr. Eddie Mosarwe for raising my awareness to the industry and for his professional advice.

Mr. Emily Ntandoyenkosi Sibiya for providing his patience, guidance and overall support in
the whole attachment.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ECOHS – Environmental Community, Occupational and Health Safety

OLDM - Orapa, Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines

D&B - Drill and Blast

MMU - Mobile Manufacturing Unit

VMS - Vehicle Monitoring System

EMV - Earth Moving Vehicles

AEL - African Explosives Limited

GeoMos - Geodetic Monitoring System

SSR - Slope Stability Radar

LTP – Long Term Planner

STP – Short Term Planner

SP - Stockpile

BBR - Basalt Breccia

SVK - Southern Volcaniclastic Kimberlite

NPK - Northern Pyroclastic Kimberlite

NPK_GG - Northern Pyroclastic Kimberlite, GG-rich

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SYNOPSIS

Mining involves a lot of processes to be able to mine efficiently and safely starting with
Mineral Resource Management which incorporates of a Long-term planner who provides the
yearly plan of the tonnages that are going to be moved in that year, geologists who are the
custodians of mineral resources, geo- technicians who monitors the slope stability of the pit.
A short-term planner breaks down the yearly plan down to the daily shift plan on how much
tonnage is going to be moved and VMS is used to monitor and allocate trucks to meet the
production plan and the load and haul move the muck pile to their dumping sites and for it to
be moved they are must be drilled first and blasted.

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INTRODUCTION

DeBeers got in partnership with Botswana on June 23, 1969 and the Orapa mine was
discovered By Manfred Marx in 1967 and fully operated in 1971. It was opened by Sir
Seretse Khama, then the Letlhakane mine was the 2 nd to be opened in 1975. The Jwaneng
mine also known as prince of mines was opened in 1982 by Sir Ketumile Masire, it is the
richest diamond mine in the world by value and contributes 60-70% of Debswana revenue.
Damtshaa mine was opened on the 25th October 2003 by Ian Khama. Debswana also owns
and operates Morupule coal mine.

This industrial training commenced on the 4th of June 2018 where we were booked for
medicals in order to ensure that we were healthy to work in the mine on the 7 th of the same
month and the induction which was provided by the ECOHS and the security personnel on
the key aspects to look at in the mine, which took place the following week on a Tuesday
morning which is standard procedure for any personnel that will enter the blue area where all
the mining is taking place.

Debswana has set values that its employees implement to be able to meet their set targets and
work efficiently. These values are to; PUT SAFETY FIRST, BE PASSIONATE, PULL
TOGETHER, BUILD TRUST, SHOW WE CARE & SHAPE THE FUTURE. Employees
are not only advised to use these values at work but in their daily routines outside of work as
well and they enforce this by writing safety quotes along the road on the pit.

They also have collision avoidance on every vehicle that will beep on several occasions,
among them being less than 50 meters with the next vehicle, which exceeding the 40km/h
speed limit.

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Debswana has placed safety berms along the road with the height equal to half the wheel of
the biggest vehicle using that road which will minimize the damage and injuries of all out of
control vehicles.

This report will give the details of my learning experience during the attachment period as
they were carried out, not as they unfold systematically. It will provide details about what I
learned through both practical and just firsthand information about various departments that
are involved in the extraction of ore and country rock. This report is based on an 8-week
period that were spent in OLDM as part of training for my degree programme in Mining
Engineering. The attachment period commenced on the 18th of June 2018 and ended on the
6th of August 2018.

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HIERARCHY OF THE ORGANIZATION

VEHICLE MONITORING SYSTEM

VMS is one of the important systems in the mine as it manages the Load and Haul
production, they do this by allocating trucks to loading equipment looking at the priority at
the time, for instance it may be waste hence they would assign more trucks to the shovel
that’s loading waste at that time using the plans from the short term planner, and monitors
them to do that work.

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They use various systems to monitor, allocate and communicate with the truck, shovel and all
other vehicles used in the mine and this are; fleet control, mine vision, mobile data terminal
(MDT) and installed radio speakers and transmitters in every vehicle for communication.

-Mine Vision

Figure 1: Map of the mine showing all the haul roads and machinery

It is used for pinpointing the exact truck and shovel locations in the mine and making new
routes on the mine, this is done by accessing the database, playback Query, new position
playback and this will show where exactly the trucks have passed to access a new loading
site or a new dumping site and it’s this information we use for making new routes from the
tracks that the trucks have left.

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Figure 2: Map of the mine showing all playback position of the trucks

It also has two types of beacons; Access beacon and dispatch beacon. The access beacon
which is also the exit and entry beacon which cater for equipment for equipment that enters
and exit while the dispatch beacon diverts trucks from where the shovels are full to where the
shovels have no trucks, to avoid queues on the shovels. To do this, in fleet control you
assign groups of shovels and it will be this group that the beacon will use to assign trucks to a
loader that has a few trucks waiting to load.

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-Fleet control

Figure 3: Map of the mine showing all the haul roads and machinery

It's a checklist for all mine machinery and monitors the production payload per shift.

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-Mobile Data Terminal

Figure 4: MDT of a shovel

This system is installed in the trucks and shovels which shows the status, location, block,
material, dump the truck is supposed to take ore or waste to and also has navigation which
shows the route the truck takes from the loading area to the dumping area. It also allows
VMS people to send messages to the trucks and shovels.

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-Floor elevation

Figure 5: Bench Manager

A target is set for the specific bench height, this system measures the bucket height and
displays it on the screen so that the shovel operator can see if he over mined or undermined
and take the right steps in correcting the problems.

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LOAD AND HAUL

The Load and Haul’s mandate is moving ore and waste from the pit to the different dumps in
the Orapa mine which are mopipi (waste dump), various stockpiles for different types of rock
types and the two operating crushers.

Stockpiles are used when there is no access to the pit so that the plant can continue
processing, usually if there was a slope failure or in rainy seasons when the pit ramps are
unsafe to use.

Various stockpiles in Orapa mine are:

SP 802 BBR (40 cpht)

SP 807 Shale (40 cpht)
SP 805 SVPK (70 cpht)
SP 806 crushed stockpile
SP 808 MVK 2
SP 810 SVK (low grade)
SP 814 NPK_GG
SP 813 NPK

Took cycle times for a new project to incorporate in the production plans for the new
stockpile in the mine. This is going to be used to calculate the cost per ton for the distance
covered and equipment used.

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Figure 6: A truck spotting under the shovel

Equipment’s used to carry out that task:

• Trucks

KOMATSU 730E - 7 ROCK TRUCK, CATERPILLAR 789C ROCK TRUCK and

KOMATSU 830E – AC ROCK TRUCK

• Loaders

1. Shovels

The shovels that are used in the Orapa mine are CATERPILLAR FS 6060-1, KOMATSU
PC 5500-3, KOMATSU PC 5500-2 and PC 8000-1 which are heavier and stable and have a
bigger shovel bucket which is more efficient to use when loading and has a higher
consumption.

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2. Front end loader

CAT 994H -High mobility, smaller engine which means low costs, lot of hydraulic power,
(cheaper, less efficient, shorter life span) compared to a shovel. On the downside of it, heavy
loads may lift rear wheels resulting in damage and its fuel tank is 3000L.

• Support equipment

Wheel dozers-cleaning spillage and the loading area.

Track dozers-dumps cleaning and has a ripper which is used for improving the floor.

Grader-remove angulation on the road, helping fuel consumption by up to 3% of trucks

Water bowser-regulation of duct on the pit (dust suppression) and provides the drills with
water to suppress dust when drilling.

Fuel bowser-provides slow moving machines with fuel directly where they are.

906 FEL-front end loader which is mostly used for stemming and crusher cleaning.

There are 64 employees per shift in load and haul, 5 team leaders, 2 coordinators and the rest
being operators and as they take waste and ore from the pit there are few challenges that they
face and the consequences that come with those challenges, a few of them being;

-Shovel operator overloading the dump truck, this hinders the truck speed increasing the
cycle time which increases the fuel consumption, increases the chances of spillages on roads
which causes the trucks to stop on the road slowing production time and also wears out the
truck tires and the overall truck lifespan.

-Shovel operator overloading the shovel bucket which will cause spillages on the loading
area which causes delays while waiting for the wheel dozers to fix the loading area.

-Uneven roads that causes the trucks to go at a slower speed.

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Mitigations in place to curb the challenges are;

-Shovel operators clean the loading area while waiting for the next truck to load, and guides
the truck users when spotting to avoid the truck from parking directly on the muck pile
because it can tilt and once it’s loaded it can fall on the side, and if the truck is not positioned
correctly it will not be easy to center the muck pile hence it will be overloaded on the side
and bear all the weight which will increase the deterioration time on that side. And the shovel
operator sounds the horn once to show the truck operator that they have parked the right way
and sounds the horn twice for the truck operator to spot again.

-The truck should park 50m away from the shovel and access the area before spotting (first
load), after loading should park 50m away from the shovel and inspect the vehicle before
hauling.

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DRILL AND BLAST

The drill and blast were carried out at the Damtshaa mine which had 2 small scale pits (BK09
and BK12)

DEMARCATION
The mine values the safety of its employees, so it has set some standard for specific sites and
activities being:

-Green cones are used on parking areas,

-White cones used on construction sites,

-Blue cones are used at a site that has been drilled and

-Red cones are used on sites that have been charged with explosives and to get on that site,
you must be searched by the blasting assistant on that field

The blasting technician makes the blast pattern and it’s sent to the surveyors who plots the
holes in the specific bench that’s going to be drilled.

MAGAZINE

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Figure 7: A magazine

The Damtshaa magazine had a sign that could be seen from 100meters away written
EXPLOSIVES in red on a white background at the gate. The magazine was fenced and the
vegetation around it was cleared, about 25meters away from the fence, always locked and
had a contraband box located at the entrance.

The explosives magazine has three lightening conductors that are twice the building, an earth
mount around the magazine and the magazine is made of:

-a steel door,

-a wooden floor,

-elbow flues on the walls for air

Its contents are an explosive act, a minimum and maximum thermometer and a register.

Appointment Mag Magazine and the spacing in the Mag between shelves should be big
enough for easy passage around the magazine.

Safe guarding at all times and there are two of them, each of them keeping a specific type of
explosives. Type A being fracture explosives and Type B being explosive cartages.

FRACTURE
The vehicle that transports explosive should have the following;

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-Explosives written in red on a white background and visible at 100m,

-no smoking, no cell phone and no matchsticks signs,

-rubber lines or aluminum,

-separation between the compartments, one for the fracture explosives and the other for
explosive cartages,

-Two fire extinguishers,

-shall be affixed with four Red flags and two red beacons that are different from the other
vehicles beacons,

-exhaust pipe shall protrude to the front,

-must be road worthy and

-should have a permit to carry explosives.

BLASTING PROCEDURE

-From the holes drilled, we measure the holes by a 30meter ruler to see if the given drill hole
has the required drill meters and if they have over drilled then the hole is refilled to the
required drill and if they have under drilled, then the hole is redrilled.

- Then we continue on to priming, whereby a digishot + electronic delay detonators and a

pentolite booster are combined on the bench and then you drop the digishot + electronic
delay detonator together with the booster down the hole with the downline wire and when it
has reached the bottom of the hole, its lifted up by a meter so that the primer will be fully
submerged within the bulk explosive charge.

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-The hole is charged with a Manual Manufacturing Unit by an AEL company truck that
supplies the hole with emulsion explosives made of ammonium nitrate and diesel. The bulk
explosive should reach the bottom hence the horse that delivers the explosive should reach
the bottom of the hole and as you pour the explosive in, the horse is slowly lifted up the hole
to replace any water at the bottom and to be sure that there are no gaps in between the
explosives.

-Stemming, this is inserting inert material on top of the explosive charge on the drill hole.
By stemming you close off borehole pressure, gap pressure to achieve maximum rock
fragmentation, also prevent air blasts, minimize fly rocks and keeps the pressure evenly on
the rock.

-After stemming, the holes are tagged which gives them a row number, hole number and
number of detonators in a hole to connect them to a bench box, giving it an identity.

-The detonators were tested for any leakages and faults and were fixed accordingly.

-Then the detonating cord is connected to a harness wire that supplies the electrical shock
required for the blast from the bench box. The bench box is remotely detonated by a base
box in a secure location outside of the pit away from the blast area but in visual range for
safety.

A pre-split was also blasted, and for it a cortex and splitex were used and it’s used to crack
the rock mass to protect the final wall from the blast.

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Figure 8: A charged bench

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SURVEY

They oversee positioning around the mine, this include:

-Positioning of drill holes that was provided by the blasting technician. They input the
coordinates of the drill holes into a gps controller and use a gps antennae and a gps stick to
plot it in the pit to assist the drilling team to see the exact position of the drill holes and also
input the stacking of the pattern, thus the trim, production and presplit,

-They also anticipate the volume of ore that is going to be moved in a certain block and the
information can be used to check the costs.

-When expanding the pit, they show the actual position of the new parameters
-They also help on maintaining the ramps and tell the mining team how much material is
needed to fill and to cut the overlapped areas.

-They also advise on where to put the pipelines in such a way that the pit activities like
walking and movement of machinery is not disturbed.

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GEOTECHNICAL SECTION

The mandate of the Geotechnical section is to design safe, economically reasonable pit
slopes, to monitor and to manage the stability of the pit as the mine progresses.

Consequences of a slope failure

-Mine production delays as you have to remove the waste first which brings more costs to the
company added to the fact that there are going to be equipment repairs and replacement,

-slope failures can also lead to injury and loss of life.

-Can lead to mine closure which will result in loss of jobs.

Some slope stability challenges at OLDM are wedges, toppling, sliding and rock mass
failures caused by joints found on the bench final wall.

Slope stability challenges at OLDM

● Jointed sandstone rock

● Kimberlite-country rock contacts

● Mudstone lenses

● Weak kimberlite bedding planes and internal kimberlite contacts.

Mitigation (Slope monitoring and Support)

● Slope angle design

● Slope monitoring ( Slope stability Radar, GeoMos, MPBX)

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● Cable bolt support

● Shotcrete

● Wire mash support

● Slope dewatering

● Cautious final wall planning

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GEOLOGY

They are the custodians of mineral resources and in that need to always check the confidence
of the mineral resource that is going to be mined in the next coming years. What they do;

1. Grade Control
It’s a process if maximizing value and reducing risk, it requires the delivery of tonnes at an
optimum grade to mill via the accurate definition of ore and waste.

-Face mapping
Data collection method of mapping exposed faces, ore waste contacts used to update the
geological model.

-Drill Chip Loggings

They minimize dilution of waste and ore where there is a contact which is done before a
blast, hence influence the blasting team not to blast across contacts and control waste that
goes to the plant. And confirms the geology on the ground as per the model.

-Blast Demarcation
Its done to avoid double pay because it costs money to move ore from the pit to the stockpile
and from the stockpile to the crusher, so we want to minimize this and if the ore is a part of
the feeding plan, it’s taken straight to the crusher.

As contacts are identified using drill chip loggings before the blast and demarcate the contact
after blasting, they use different colored tapes to show which type of rock it is; red for waste.
Green for ore and yellow for contact and this helps to separate the muck pile.

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-Run of mine density sampling

Done immediately after the blast with the help of survey to pick points to collect rock
samples and calculate the tonnage of the blast.20 hand fist samples on run of mine muck pile
are taken and inside mass is taken, then a dry mass of the samples are taken and the samples
are inserted in water for 16 hours and a wet mass is also taken.

Daily
Loading site inspection - To guide the loaders on the daily loading plan i: e ore and waste.
Loading sites are normally demarcated with a green tape to represent ore and red waste.

Stockpile management - Check if there is no waste at the stockpile and any mix of different
types of ores at the stockpiles and also check if the material that VMS people are feeding
according to plan and if what they see on the monitors is the same thing that’s happening on
the ground.

SHORT TERM PLANNING

Yearly plan from the LTP comes with polygons that are supposed to be moved in that year,
estimated tonnages, carats and grade of those polygons in the yearly plan. The plan is then
divided into quarterly plans from LTP. As the year progresses LTP makes periodic forecasts
to achieve this plan (budget). These forecasts are as follows;

1. 1+11 forecast and budgets, The forecasts takes into account what has
happened/mined in the previous month and the forecast(or looks to the front), how to mine
the remaining target in the year.

2. 4+8 forecast and budgets The forecasts takes into account what has happened/mined
in the first four months and adjust the plan on how to mine the remaining target of the year.

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3. 8+4 forecast and budgets The forecasts takes into account what has happened/mined
in the first eight months and the forecast(or looks to the front), how to mine the remaining
target in the year.

4. 10+2 forecast and budgets The forecasts takes into account what has
happened/mined in the previous ten months and adjust the plan to fit the remaining two
months.

Once the yearly plan has been split into monthly plan, the STP from Geology guidance
formulates weekly blends that dictate the weekly carats production. At the end of the month
survey measures pit advancement and the plan is reconciled.

Plant plan

-The plant has a section called splits, where there is a percentage of ore (be it from the pit or
the stockpile) that is distributed to the, two plants running in the Orapa mine and

-another section called pledge, whereby the two plants running in the Orapa mine pledge on a
certain tonnage that they will receive and treat from the mining section.

Mine Design

-There is a monthly design, geology lines, pit parameters from the surveyors, in every
polygon, geology determines the rock type and the carats in that polygon.

Production plan

-Tonnage (ore expit to crusher)

-budget and forecast

Short term planners also;

-fill all key performance indicators reported every week.

-Take availability of machinery from VMS and then make a production plan of the trucks,
-display number of trucks available,

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-the availability of trucks per load and

-the total available average

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PLANT APPRECIATION

Only got to visit the no.1 plant and got to comprehend the works of the plant through a
PowerPoint slide presentation provided by Mr. Maphane which from it, learned;

-That ore processing begins at the primary crushers as dump trucks haul fragmented rocks
from the pit to the plant. The mineral rich soil is loaded into the primary no. 2 and no. 3
crushers which then breakdown the big rocks to a maximum size of 150 mm. The crushed
ore then lands on conveyer belts via apron feeders to be carried to the following sections of
the No. 1 plant. A conveyer belt move the ore to the 15000 ton stock pile. Push feeders
underneath the stockpile draw ore onto conveyer belts that carry it to the screening section of
the plant. Here the ore runs through the screens to get specific size ranges and to separate the
fines (-6 mm) from the coarse (-25 mm, +6 mm) material. Rocks that have a size greater
than 25 mm pass on the screens as oversize and the go to the secondary crushing/ re-crush
section where they are fed into secondary cone crushers. From the secondary crushing the ore
recycles back to the screening plant. The coarse material passes to a temporary storage tank;
the 600 ton bin. The fines are pumped to the pachucas via the underflow pumps. Ore then
goes to the Dense Media Separation Section from the pachucas and the 600 ton bin where the
diamond bearing ore is separated from the waste by means of centrifugal forces in the
cyclones. This separation takes advantage of the density of the product. The ore is mixed
with a medium of a known density that is less than that of the diamond. The diamond
bearing material is denser and it will sink to the bottom of the cyclones while the diamond
lacking material overflows from the top of the cyclones since its light in weight. The
diamond concentrated ore is then transported to CARP for further reconcentration.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

I recommend that the industrial attachment should be well organized from the beginning as
the given time is already short to fully comprehend everything the mine has to offer. From
the booking of medicals, providing attachés with proper and adequate ppe which they are
going to use in the mine and if need be return them, to contacting relevant parties who play a
significant role in the development of the attaché.

As there is an expansion in the pit (cut 3), the planners should plan their building sites and
their stockpiles adequately this time around as they will be forced to move the stockpiles to
another location which is going to cost more money.

As the mine is more concerned with big truck’s tires, they should be equally concerned with
the LDV’s because saving those small tires will save money. And an issue that was raised in
an Otraco’s meeting is that the truck tires spend the whole day in the sun, and the mine
should not order so many truck tires which will not have a place to be stored.

The mine should keep up the refreshers as it raises awareness to new things that the
employees might have overlooked which will improve a safe and productive workplace.

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CONCLUSION

The industrial attachment proved to be fruitful as I have gained a lot of knowledge and the
know how to perform different tasks that are being done in the mine.

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