Copper mines in Africa

[williamdraper]

Anybody else work in Africa for or as a supplier to copper mines? I spent five years over there primarily working in Zambia and Zaire (now Republic of Congo) for a supplier.
Lots of basis problems we would never even think of here in the States.

[John]

Feb 25, 2013 22:40:24 GMT -5 williamdraper said:

Anybody else work in Africa for or as a supplier to copper mines? I spent five years over there primarily working in Zambia and Zaire (now Republic of Congo) for a supplier.
Lots of basis problems we would never even think of here in the States.

Never worked in Africa, but we do have one member who worked in SA in deep mines, we also have a couple of members who worked/work for coal mining equipment manufacturers.

[boaz]

I deal with a company called Schauenburg in South Africa and I also think there is a guy called William Mattinson from Zambia but a UK resident at present on here somewhere

[garryo]

Worked for Anglo American later NCCM at copper mines in Zambia Africa, knew plenty of suppliers working for company's such as Cutler Hammer (Electrical), Mitchell Cotts, Eimco, Blackwood Hodge (euclid heavy plant), Bucyrus Erie (shovels) and others, unfortunately most of the names escape me (something to do with age I think).

Getting back to the mines themselves what a change from UK mines in many many respects, first of all the sheer size of some operations, remembering that in the majority of cases a MINE included the mine or mines themselves, concentrator, possibly a smelter, internal railway, townships, and other infrastructure.

Myself, coming from a medium sized colliery, typically 800 men, say 6,000 ton a week and shafts lucky to be a 1,000ft deep to an operation employing 12500 people, mining over 5 million tons of copper and cobalt ore (at 2% copper) a year, two concentrators, a copper smelter and group copper refinery it was quite a change to put it mildly!

On the minining side again considerable differences, the mine I spent most of the time at had six vertical shafts and two sub-vertical shafts, needed 14 winders to cater for the various shafts with two of the winders being four rope friction winders, one tower mounted on the surface the other installed 3,000 feet underground. six of the winders were almost identical 4,400HP double drum with Ward Leonard electrics.

Deep, Hot and millions of bodies is probaly a simple way to describe them.

Any comments or questions just ask?

[Wheldale]

How was the ore worked in the copper mines? I worked in South Africa for a year with Goldfields. I was based mostly at West Driefontein. Your right the mines in general are massive. In 97 there were 15000 miners at West Drie working over 5 shafts. (more than was employed in the UK coal industry) At 6 shaft to get down to levels 28-38 you travelled 3 shafts, the depest area being 3200 meters.

The gold mines I experienced were labour intensive working longwall stoping. The reef (gold bearing ore) varied from being a pencil line thickness to over 8 meters thick in one area.

I once was in the workshop and I was surprised to see a few pieces of equipment such as lathes and mills etc that were made in Great Britain.

Is Zambia as racist as South Africa? It was mental when I was out there!

[garryo]

Hi Wheldale, here are the answers to your questions,

First-How the copper ore was worked, obviously totaly different from coal and also West Driefontein where you worked either the Ventersdorp contact reef or the carbon leader by longwall. No the method was a system called sub level open stoping, basically it worked like this- most of the copper ore bodies in Zambia were in the form of synclines, Simplest way to explain a syncline is take for example a layered cake or a three layered liquorice all sort and bend it into a U shape, imagine that the inside layer of the cake or all sort is the ore. from the top of the U on one side to the bottom of the U could be up to 6000ft. In the case of some copper belt mines only one side of the syncline was mineralized to an extent to be worth working. Some of the synclines ran for 10 to 15 miles or more.

So what you basically have is an orebody which could vary from almost vertical to inclined at say 20 degrees and be between 8ft and 20ft wide. Next sink a vertical shaft on the dead side of the U and drive tunnels or drives at say every 250ft vertical intervals to the orebody and when the ore has been hit, drive ore drive along in the ore in both directions.

After that large diameter blast hole drills drilled the ore out between the levels or sub levels and then it was blasted into a contious void or stope. The broken ore was then drawn out of the stope by chutes and trammed to the shaft in either 10Ton Granby cars or 20Ton Tray cars pulled by electric trolley locomotives and hoisted to the surface in skips.

Levels were like I said driven every 250-300ft so in the case of a 4,000ft deep shaft you could have up to 12-16 levels, mind you only say six were worked at one time as some were being developed, some exhausted and some working, also if the orebody was dipping at say 20-30 degrees instead of driving the shaft deeper and having very long x-cuts to lode drives they would sink a sub-vertical similar to South African gold mines

I hope the above makes sense like they say a picture say's a thousand words, I have a diagram somewhere if John lets me post it.

Whew! Secondly question race relations, generaly the working relations with the Zambians was good, occaisonal problems with racism in reverse, YES it happens but usually no problems. BUT biggest problems was between the expatriates US lot. Some South Africans working on the copperbelt with queer sounding names gave us hell just for the sake of it, something about the Booer War and the Frei Stat yet as usual a few of them were nice people when the got to know you or wanted something. Now Garryo you must stop this line of thought!

Overall life on the Copper Belt was excellent would have recomended to anyone at the time but after UDI and problems across the Zambesi the place went to the dogs.

Hope this helps and again hope the first answer wasn't too long winded.

[garryo]

Hi Wheldale, here are the answers to your questions,

First-How the copper ore was worked, obviously totaly different from coal and also West Driefontein where you worked either the Ventersdorp contact reef or the carbon leader by longwall. No the method was a system called sub level open stoping, basically it worked like this- most of the copper ore bodies in Zambia were in the form of synclines, Simplest way to explain a syncline is take for example a layered cake or a three layered liquorice all sort and bend it into a U shape, imagine that the inside layer of the cake or all sort is the ore. from the top of the U on one side to the bottom of the U could be up to 6000ft. In the case of some copper belt mines only one side of the syncline was mineralized to an extent to be worth working. Some of the synclines ran for 10 to 15 miles or more.

So what you basically have is an orebody which could vary from almost vertical to inclined at say 20 degrees and be between 8ft and 20ft wide. Next sink a vertical shaft on the dead side of the U and drive tunnels or drives at say every 250ft vertical intervals to the orebody and when the ore has been hit, drive ore drive along in the ore in both directions.

After that large diameter blast hole drills drilled the ore out between the levels or sub levels and then it was blasted into a continous void or stope. The broken ore was then drawn out of the stope by chutes and trammed to the shaft in either 10Ton Granby cars or 20Ton Tray cars pulled by electric trolley locomotives and hoisted to the surface in skips.

Levels were like I said driven every 250-300ft so in the case of a 4,000ft deep shaft you could have up to 12-16 levels, mind you only say six were worked at one time as some were being developed, some exhausted and some working, also if the orebody was dipping at say 20-30 degrees instead of driving the shaft deeper and having very long x-cuts to lode drives they would sink a sub-vertical similar to South African gold mines

I hope the above makes sense like they say a picture say's a thousand words, I have a diagram somewhere if John lets me post it.

Whew! Secondly question race relations, generaly the working relations with the Zambians was good, occaisonal problems with racism in reverse, YES it happens but usually no problems. BUT biggest problems was between the expatriates US lot. Some South Africans working on the copperbelt with queer sounding names gave us hell just for the sake of it, something about the Booer War and the Frei Stat yet as usual a few of them were nice people when the got to know you or wanted something. Now Garryo you must stop this line of thought!

Overall life on the Copper Belt was excellent would have recomended to anyone at the time but after UDI and problems across the Zambesi the place went to the dogs.

Hope this helps and again hope the first answer wasn't too long winded.

[John]

Post away Garry, the more pictures, drawings etc the better.
I recall reading how they got the copper at Mt Isa years ago, there were photos etc in the article. They used sub level cave in in the stopes, they also carried out the largest blast in history in the late 70's, mainly for geological seismic experiments, from which they gained a ton of information.

Pity I never saw the stopes at Renison Bell tin mine while I was there, although I went underground a few times, but there was no electrical equipment used in their stopes, was all air driven or diesels.

[Wheldale]

Mar 8, 2013 10:15:28 GMT -5 garryo said:

Hi Wheldale, here are the answers to your questions,

First-How the copper ore was worked, obviously totaly different from coal and also West Driefontein where you worked either the Ventersdorp contact reef or the carbon leader by longwall. No the method was a system called sub level open stoping, basically it worked like this- most of the copper ore bodies in Zambia were in the form of synclines, Simplest way to explain a syncline is take for example a layered cake or a three layered liquorice all sort and bend it into a U shape, imagine that the inside layer of the cake or all sort is the ore. from the top of the U on one side to the bottom of the U could be up to 6000ft. In the case of some copper belt mines only one side of the syncline was mineralized to an extent to be worth working. Some of the synclines ran for 10 to 15 miles or more.

So what you basically have is an orebody which could vary from almost vertical to inclined at say 20 degrees and be between 8ft and 20ft wide. Next sink a vertical shaft on the dead side of the U and drive tunnels or drives at say every 250ft vertical intervals to the orebody and when the ore has been hit, drive ore drive along in the ore in both directions.

After that large diameter blast hole drills drilled the ore out between the levels or sub levels and then it was blasted into a continous void or stope. The broken ore was then drawn out of the stope by chutes and trammed to the shaft in either 10Ton Granby cars or 20Ton Tray cars pulled by electric trolley locomotives and hoisted to the surface in skips.

Levels were like I said driven every 250-300ft so in the case of a 4,000ft deep shaft you could have up to 12-16 levels, mind you only say six were worked at one time as some were being developed, some exhausted and some working, also if the orebody was dipping at say 20-30 degrees instead of driving the shaft deeper and having very long x-cuts to lode drives they would sink a sub-vertical similar to South African gold mines

I hope the above makes sense like they say a picture say's a thousand words, I have a diagram somewhere if John lets me post it.

Whew! Secondly question race relations, generaly the working relations with the Zambians was good, occaisonal problems with racism in reverse, YES it happens but usually no problems. BUT biggest problems was between the expatriates US lot. Some South Africans working on the copperbelt with queer sounding names gave us hell just for the sake of it, something about the Booer War and the Frei Stat yet as usual a few of them were nice people when the got to know you or wanted something. Now Garryo you must stop this line of thought!

Overall life on the Copper Belt was excellent would have recomended to anyone at the time but after UDI and problems across the Zambesi the place went to the dogs.

Hope this helps and again hope the first answer wasn't too long winded.

Sounds a similar infrastructure to the gold mines set up. Do you know how the ore body was made? Did you have any problems with gas?

I remember the Afrikaans in SA. MENTAL!! lol. Very racist BUT respected any black person that knew how to mine. An overseer that I knew who was of English decent to me a saying in Afrikaans that translated to "When an boer makes a plan he asks an Englishman". I used to say that to the boers but they didnt like it!! ;D

In Zambia what was the local beer and what was the cost of living like?

[garryo]

Hi Again Wheldale

The orebody's were formed as I understand but not being a geologist by molten stream being forced out of the earths mantle, before hitting the surfaces they would tend to find the route via the softer rocks. Over time they cooled and with folding and other earth movements got there present day shape. Where the ore came into contact with the surface the upper part changed from sulphide ore to oxide ore. The oxidisation caused by water and rain perculation.

The treatment of the major part of the orebody on the Zambian Copperbelt and also at Mt Isa being sulphide was via flotation and then smelting, the oxide ore required a different method usaually acid leach and then the resultant liquor treated in electo-win plants.

Beer well theres a subject close to my heart, on the copperbelt two main lager beers Lion and Castle, the locals had a maize beer called Chibuku.

A funny story about Chibuku, during the first week at a copperbelt mine you had to do an induction, part of the induction was to visit a typical beer hall in the african township, The african host asked about eight of us what we wanted to drink, most aked for Lion or Castle but one lad from Scotland being a bit ambitious asked for Chibuku which the host was most pleased to offer. Same came to the table in a cut down small oil drum complete with Shell Rimula proudly displayed on the front, but of coarse suitably washed out.
The Scots lad put the bucket of Chibuku to his lips and the rest of us looked on mouths open in silence. Slowly Terry started to drink the contents of the bucket, still not a word was spoken. Terry then lowered the bucket and someone said, Whats it like Terry?, to which Terry answered , I didn't know whether to chew it or swallow it!

True all true.

Cost of living and life in general, Firstly all expatriates were employed on three year renewable contracts, usually after two and half years if they wanted you the company would offer you a further contract if not you completed three years and left, most people re-signed for a further term. How you got paid was all in local currency Kwacha, normally you could externilise initialy 30% of your salary but this was then dropped to 25%. On top of this you got a gratuity at the end of the contract which you also could remit. However as most of the food the expatriates ate had to be imported the cost of living was quite high, if you were married and your wife could work which some wives did then you could have a good life and send out your 25% or 30% otherwise you just had a good life. Plenty of parties, barbeques or brai's etc.
Life started to go sour after UDI and sanctions on Rhodesia later Zimbabwe, when the Chinese built the Tanzam railway all the imported food became chinese variety!

Myself I did two contracts and was offered a third but decided to leave as things were rapidly going down the gurguller, great job, great life but the politics from across the Southern border started to kill things especially when Robert came to power.

[Wheldale]

I was in South Africa for a year, I enjoyed it there but things were going down hill with violence, shootings etc. In the mine club we had Lion and Castle. I wasnt a fan of Lion but loved Castle! There were many expats at the Kloof club. We had quite a few power cuts as the black people used to set fire to the scrub lands to drive away snakes. Luckily the Kloof mine club had a direct power feed from Kloof 3 shaft so we had a place to go when the power went off!!

Cost of living was cheap, I used to clear 200 quid a month but that was more than enough for a single lad to eat well and drink well!

[dazbt]

Mar 10, 2013 14:05:35 GMT -5 Wheldale said:

I was in South Africa for a year, I enjoyed it there but things were going down hill with violence, shootings etc. In the mine club we had Lion and Castle. I wasnt a fan of Lion but loved Castle! There were many expats at the Kloof club. We had quite a few power cuts as the black people used to set fire to the scrub lands to drive away snakes. Luckily the Kloof mine club had a direct power feed from Kloof 3 shaft so we had a place to go when the power went off!!

Cost of living was cheap, I used to clear 200 quid a month but that was more than enough for a single lad to eat well and drink well!

what year was that Wheldale and what were you employed as ............ if you don't mind me asking?

[Wheldale]

It was 97/98 when I was out there. I was studying mining at the time and got offered the chance to spend a year in South Africa. My official title was learner official. In my year I qualifed as an onsetter then skilled mine worker (by South African standards) and passed my blasting ticket and then did a little bit of development heading work before coming home. I could have gone back but I thought SA was going down hill. When I finished studying I went into land surveying. I've not much experience in mining but I've been interested in mining since I was 10 and it was an awesome year in SA.

[dazbt]

Sounds like it was an opportunity too good to miss out on, it would seem that the company didn't tie you to any contract after all that intensive training an exceptional experience. Weren't you involved in mining at all after that, other than your obvious intense interest in it all?
I can well understand the way in which you were affected by all the social/political turmoil and changes out there at the time, by the way.

[Wheldale]

I wasnt tied to Goldfields, I could have gone back there but things were changing with politics etc in SA. That was the only mining job I had. I got a job as a land surveyor working for an ex coal board surveyor. Did that for a few years then started working for the father-in-law's buisness in a warehouse.

[longdick]

As I have just joined the Forum I thought that I would make my debut.
My background is long wall mining in Yorkshire but I would like to pass on some of my experiences on the Copper Belt in Zambia from 1970-1975.

It was only 4 years after independence from Britain and the country was a trifle different to the U.K.

The new black policemen walked about holding hands!

There were only two beers available both bottled,no draught.

The house boy lived in a hut at the bottom of the garden,with wife and kids.

You had to put a bloody big chain round the back axle of your car and padlock it to a post every night or Simbas from the Congo would pinch it.

You could not walk after dark on pain of death.

The police had road blocks on the road in an out and would stick a loaded machine gun in your ear to ask you where you were going even though you had only passed the other way minutes before.

We never saw any fruit and at one time no spuds for nearly a year.

The African miners were only paid once a month and for a week every month they were all legless,even at work.

Now that may seem a little off putting but by hell we had the most fabulous time of our lives in Zambia.

Sorry forgot about the mining,will get back to you about that.

Longdick

[John]

An old mate I lost contact with years back now, went to Zambia for a couple of years on a contract with the Copperbelt Power Company ( I think that was the name of the company) as an electrician. He did his best to get myself and my family to go out with him and his wife... Never appealed to me going to Africa.
He stuck it out, made and saved a few bob before returning to the UK.
Was shortly after that we lost contact with one another, been trying to locate him and his wife for a number of years now, all searches have come up empty, I fear he may have passed on.

[Wheldale]

May 2, 2013 3:39:31 GMT -5 longdick said:

As I have just joined the Forum I thought that I would make my debut.
My background is long wall mining in Yorkshire but I would like to pass on some of my experiences on the Copper Belt in Zambia from 1970-1975.

It was only 4 years after independence from Britain and the country was a trifle different to the U.K.

The new black policemen walked about holding hands!

There were only two beers available both bottled,no draught.

The house boy lived in a hut at the bottom of the garden,with wife and kids.

You had to put a bloody big chain round the back axle of your car and padlock it to a post every night or Simbas from the Congo would pinch it.

You could not walk after dark on pain of death.

The police had road blocks on the road in an out and would stick a loaded machine gun in your ear to ask you where you were going even though you had only passed the other way minutes before.

We never saw any fruit and at one time no spuds for nearly a year.

The African miners were only paid once a month and for a week every month they were all legless,even at work.

Now that may seem a little off putting but by hell we had the most fabulous time of our lives in Zambia.

Sorry forgot about the mining,will get back to you about that.

Longdick

I remember in South Africa it was a tribal thing of black men holding hands, a sign of friendship so it was explained to me. I bet the beer you could get was Lion and Castle?

On the gold mine I worked at, a quarter of the black employees were paid each week. This was to limit the huge numbers of absent miners following pay day! Quite funny to see it happen, I was once in a cage on pay day with about 100 black men, they were singing a Zulu song, sounded really good in a shaft as we were travelling 1500 meters to the pit top.