Proposed construction of Umgala Colliery and Knight's Hill in vicinity of Utrecht Case No23620

The Welgedacht Exploration Company (Pty) Ltd (Welgedacht) is a subsidiary of Unyezi Coal (Pty) Ltd (Unyezi Coal) which is an affiliate company of Kangra Coal (Pty) Ltd, falls within the greater Menar group structure, is the holder of the mining right. Welgedacht has been operating in the vicinity of Utrecht since 1963, although mining activities have been prevalent in the area since 1914, and is comprised of the following mining areas:
• Aasvoëlkrans;
• Umgala / Knight’s Hill;
• Utrecht; and
• Zimbutu.
Welgedacht proposes to reopen the Umgala Colliery and construct the Knight’s Hill adit area. The Umgala / Knight’s Hill Mining Project consists of two individual coal mining operations, namely Umgala Operation and Knight’s Hill Operation, functioning under one Mining Right (MR) (KZN 30/5/1/2/2/10125 MR).

The Umgala Coal Mine is situated at 27°42'30.25"S and 30°20'57.72"E, approximately 45km from Newcastle and 3km from Utrecht, in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Province of South Africa. More specifically, Umgala is situated south-southeast of Utrecht on the southern side of the R34 and Knight’s Hill is east of Utrecht on the northern side of the R34. Umgala Mine is located within the Emadlangeni Local Municipality (ELM), ELM that was previously known as Utrecht Local Municipality, forms part of the Amajuba District Municipality. The area falls within the Buffalo River Catchment, which forms part of the Greater Tugela River Catchment.As mentioned previously, the project falls within quaternary catchments V32B and V32C in the uThukela Water Management Area (WMA) (DWS, 2016). The Umgala mining area and the related mining infrastructure are situated below the Zimbutu Mountain (approximately 5km south of Utrecht), west of the Balelesberg mountain range

Underground mining was undertaken at Umgala between 1964 and 1997. Opencast mining took place between 1997 and 2004 at Umgala, when the mine was placed under Care and Maintenance. The operation of the processing plant and disposal on the discard dump at Umgala also ceased in 2004. The old Umgala underground workings can no longer be accessed as they were closed and secured according to DMRE specifications, and backfilling of a number of the highwall areas and inclined roadways have already been completed.

It was the intention of Welgedacht to re-open and extend its mining operations at Umgala and Knight’s Hill in 2006 and GCS Water and Environmental Consultants (Pty) Ltd (GCS), on behalf of Welgedacht, completed and submitted the Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Management Programme (EIA/EMP) in accordance with the requirements of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (Act No. 28 of 2002) (MPRDA), for the Umgala / Knight’s Hill Mining Project in May 2006.

Subsequently and in response to the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) DME’s request that the EIA/EMP be resubmitted and also the 2006 public participation process be re-initiated, GCS as independent consultants undertook the resubmission of the EIA/EMP and public participation process during the course of 2009. The then Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) approved the Umgala / Knight’s Hill MR and associated EIA/EMP (dated February 2009) in 2013. Mining activities have however not commenced as yet.

Welgedacht now intends to recommission mining with the re-opening of the Umgala operation, Discard Dump and the construction of the Knight’s Hill operation. The target coal seams will be mined via a combination of opencast (in the area where the adit will be cleared) and underground board and pillar mining. It is the intention to mine anthracite coal from Umgala and bituminous coal from Knight’s Hill.