Friday, 28th July 2006 (1539 views)

A new transport system being installed by Harmony Gold will improve operations without compromising safety, Mining Weekly reports.

The South African company is investing 21.5 million rand in order to install the "railveyor" at its new Phakisa mine project, which will become the first location to feature the technology.

The railveyor is similar in appearance to a roller coaster – a long line of wagons mounted on a track that can be curved in any direction to twist through mine shafts.

Harmony project engineer Marius de Leeuw said it would take around six months to put the system in place and said: "We'll be the first to have [the] system in routine operation in a working mine, anywhere in the world."

However, he stressed that the test system has worked safely and reliably. Although the design was built to Class 5 standards, the company is using Class 1 standards to put in the first operational system.

The company recently implemented its risk management system. "We embrace our responsibility for our employees' safety and continuously strive to improve our performance," the firm said.

 

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