Leader in Quality Coal Production

The Mining Process
When coal seams are near the surface, it may be economical to extract the coal using opencast mining methods, which recover a greater proportion of the coal deposit than underground methods.

Geology and Planning
Planning an opencast mine is an exercise in economics, constrained by geologic and mining engineering aspects. Planning must account for environmental protection, including initial exploration and reclamation.

Drilling
The blast pattern drill hole location and spacing depend on the type of mined rock and overall mine plan. The depth of the hole will determine the height of the bench in the pit.

Blasting
Explosives in the drill hole are detonated, which break up the rock into smaller pieces that can be transported for further processing. Blasting may be scheduled every 1‐3 days.

Load and Haul
Large electric or hydraulic shovels scoop up blasted rock and load into haul trucks. Trucks are very large: they carry 80‐200+ tonnes per load and may take only 2‐3 shovels to fill.

Processing
Haul trucks transport run-of-mine coal to a primary crusher (there are different styles of these), which crushes it into smaller sizes. Based on customer’s requirements, the coal is then conveyed to our Wash Plant for further processing.

Washing
Our Dense Medium Separator (DMS) consists of a cyclone and a magnetic separator and spiral separators that sorts the coal to the required quality. Washed coal has less impurities and produces superior energy per tonne.

Deliver
Makomo offers timely and efficient delivery services, using road and rail, directly to our customers. We operate a substantial fleet of trucks, and six locomotives which we hire to the National Railways of Zimbabwe.

Quality
Our coal is monitored, tracked and recorded throughout the production process. Our well-equipped laboratory can test for, amongst other things, calorific value, ash content, sulphur and phosphorous.
