South African Producers Going Deeper

Thanks to its unique geology, South African has some very deep mines. AngloGold Ashanti has a mine, the Mponeng, that extends for four full kilometres down into the earth. That's two and a half miles into the Earth's crust. Since gold deposits are becoming harder to find in the area, Ashanti is planning to go even deeper underground.

Deep mining isn't easy, nor pleasant. The deeper a mine goes, the more at risk it is from underground earthquakes, rock bursts, gas discharges and flooding. And for workers, conditions themselves get progressively more uncomfortable from heat and cramped spaces. [That heat, increasing as you go deeper underground, is what makes geothermal power viable - DMR.]

South Africa is at the forefront of deep mining. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.'s LaRonde mine in northwestern Quebec, one of the deepest mines outside South Africa, operates at about 7,260 feet below the surface. Before closing in 2002, Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota was considered the deepest mine in the Western Hemisphere at about 8,045 feet. Nowhere else do mines go so deep as in South Africa, and lessons learned there from attempts to extend the life spans of mines will be applicable globally, not just for gold but for extracting other minerals underground....

It'll take about five years to go down that far, but doing so will boost the life of Mponeng by about thirty years. Ashanti's competitor, GoldFields, is making strides in automated mining. They doing so will save miners' lives.