Consulting engineering firm embraces opportunities in mining sector - Mining Weekly , 23 - 29 April 2010
Consulting engineering firm Jeffares & Green (J&G) has been increasingly involved in mining activities and is preparing roads, airports, civil infrastructure and geotechnical investigations for various copper mines in the south-eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
As part of these projects, J&G undertook the detailed design and construction monitoring to repair and reconstruct the portion of the national route N39 between the Luilu village and the Kolwezi airport road, including the link to the Luilu mine. The completed work also included the airport road, boulevard Lumumba, avenue 30 June and boulevard L Kabila, in Kolwezi town. The client was copper and cobalt producer Katanga Mining and all work was designed in accordance with DRC national road standards.
Particular challenges on the project included sourcing cement and lime for the stabilisation of the subbases, and the procurement of crushed stone for the base course. Transport and access to the construction sites were hampered by the extremely poor conditions of the existing roads. What compounded these difficulties was the rainy season form October to March, when up to 2 000 mm of rain fell. Rain was the cause of slow and difficult progress during the road construction.
Further, design work for the reconstruction of the national routes N1 and N39 between Likasi and Kolwezi (174 km) was undertaken for a consortium of mines, led by copper- and cobalt-miner Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM). The initial phase of the design included detailed materials and geotechnical investigations and the topographical survey of the entire route.
Other projects undertaken by J&G for TFM include geotechnical investigations for various housing projects and the upgrading of the border post between Zambia and the DRC, at Kasumbulesa, as well as the detailed design for the upgrading and lengthening of the runway and the provision of a new apron at the TFM-operated airport at Fungurume. The airport work entailed a pavement investigation of the existing runway, the pavement design for the new runway to accommodate Boeing 737s, horizontal and vertical alignments to facilitate adequate drainage, and new longitudinal and cross-drainage structures built to civil aviation requirements.
Established in 1922, J&G has a well-established engineering history. Through its associated firm, geotechnical, environmental and earth science consultant Terratest, it has become a major force in earth sciences, entailing geotechnical engineering and environmental consulting in all aspects. Since 2000, however, J&G has been steadily becoming more involved in mining infrastructure.
This involvement had its beginnings in the development of an opencast gold mine in northern Tanzania , on behalf of the country’s government. J&G was appointed as project manager for the entire development.
Drawing on the expertise and services of other professionals and contractors, the company was responsible for locating and proving the resource, negotiating the purchase of the licence, locating and buying a decommissioned processing plant in Australia , arranging for its stripping, refurbishment, shipping and re-erection in Tanzania , appointing civil and mining contractors and appointing a mine operator. J&G was also responsible for the design of all civil infrastructure for the mine, including earthworks, plant foundations, tailings dams, a runway, roads and the water supply.
Since then, J&G has been involved in many mining projects, including the construction of haul roads, road deviations, road crossings, water supply schemes (including augmentation and reuse) and environmental work for collieries in Mpumalanga province, design and construction monitoring of conveyor extensions at diamond producer Baken Mine’s tailings dump, as well as structural assessments at a number of the other Richtersveld mines.
Given that public roads may not cross areas of shallow undermining, the development of new coal mines, or the expansion of existing ones, almost invariably leads to a requirement for road realignment. Besides the normal engineering and environmental challenges, these projects are complicated by the fact that the funders (the mines) and the road owners (the roads authorities) are different entities.
In Madagascar , J&G was involved in a project to design and monitor construction of an asphalt-surfaced haul road of about 14 km. The client was ilmenite-miner Quebec Madagascar Minerals and the project coordinator was international consulting engineer Hatch Africa. The road serves as the transport route for shipment of heavy minerals mined from the dune sands. The road alignment required the construction of one river bridge and two major drainage box culverts. The physical construction of the route through fine dune sands, boggy wetlands and across several watercourses was extremely challenging.
The route traversed high sand dunes on the coastal strip from the site of a new harbour being constructed, south of the town of Fort Dauphin, around the western outskirts of the town, through mixed-use land development, and then north, through fine dune sands to the mining concession area. Further challenges involved the sourcing of good pavement materials, construction of the road on the sides of steep sand dunes, and the customs of the local people, particularly with regard to sacred sites and land tenure.
In South Africa, a number of projects at the iron-ore-producing Sishen South development includes the design of haul roads for some of the heaviest trucks in the world, the upgrading of the existing airstrip and the design of the new Sishen South airport; the new mine access road and the upgrading or realignment of various provincial roads also form part of the company’s portfolio in the Northern Cape.
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