MTE Phalaborwa 2025, Limpopo

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Phalaborwa – a Limpopo town located near the confluence of the Ga-Selati and the Olifants river – is close enough to the Kruger National Park that elephants sometimes cause traffic jams in the town. It is also home to Palabora Copper, an enormous open-cast mine – at almost 2 000m wide, it is Africa’s widest man-made hole.

Opencast mining has been replaced by a large-scale underground operation that will extend the life of mine considerably. Most of South Africa’s copper is mined in Phalaborwa.

Palabora Mining Company (PMC) is one of the operating mines in the area and has numerous operations including a concentrator, smelter, refinery and vermiculite operations. The underground operation produces about 80 000t of copper a year. The mine is shaped in a block-cave, with the cave reaching 450m. Ore extracted from the mine is conveyed to a converter where crushing, milling and flotation takes place. The ore then goes through additional processing in the form smelting and refining. PMC has also made significant investment in the Lift II project, which is expected to expand the life of mine to ensure that it continues until 2033.

Visitors:

Name of operation Type of OperationOwner of Operation Commodity
Palabora Copper MineUndergroundPalabora Mining CompanyCopper, magnetite, vermiculite
Phalaborwa Smelter and RefineryProcessingPalabora Mining CompanyCopper, magnetite, vermiculite
Foskor MineOpencastFoskor Mining DivisionPhosphate
Foskor ProcessingProcessingFoskorPhosphate
Idwala MagnetiteProcessingIdwalaMagnetite
Rob 5 MiningMiningRob 5Feldspar, mice and silica
Foskor ZirconiaProcessingFoskorZirconia, silica
Stibium Mopani MineProcessingStibiumAntimony

Exhibitors we would like to see:

Exhibitors we would like to see at the Phalaborwa expo include those involved with underground fire detection and sensors, dust suppression, corrosion control, high pressure washers, fans, conveyor rip detection systems, electrical instrumentation and water treatment systems and pumps.


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