Kumba is a dedicated iron ore supplier that has access to its South
African iron ore resources and reserves through Sishen Iron Ore
Company (SIOC). In support of the company’s vision to be a leading
value-adding iron ore supplier to the global steel industry,
continuous effort goes into the sound management of its iron ore
mineral assets. Technical specialists and competent persons within the
company and from major external consulting firms in cases when
sufficient experience or competence was not available internally, have:
- defined reasonably and eventually extractable mineral resources;
- converted mineral resources into practically and safely mineable and economically viable ore reserves, and
- processed the ore reserves into market-required saleable product.
Kumba, through its long-term planning processes,
not only strives to maximise economic value through the mining of its
high-grade haematite mineral resources (in situ Fe ≥ 60%),
but also considers sustainable development through the mining and
planned mining of lower-grade haematite material (40% ≤ in situ
Fe < 60%) to maximise resource utilisation. The Zandrivierspoort
mineral resources are mostly magnetite, with some surfacial haematite
and the cut-off applied is 30% in situ Fe. This project is Kumba’s first venture into potential low-grade iron ore resource exploitation.