CRC TiME facilitated my attendance at Mine Closure 2025 in Johannesburg, South Africa (RSA) in February 2025. I presented a paper “Establishing Mine Rehabilitation Reforms in Queensland, Australia” in which I outlined some key elements of Queensland’s most recent mine rehabilitation and closure reforms.
I combined the conference with site visits to Seriti’s Rietspruit and Glencore’s Tweefontein thermal coal mines. I’m interested in how different jurisdictions are approaching the challenges of transitions away from carbon-intensive commodities. Rietspruit mine operated until 2002 and has been in long term care and maintenance since. The focus of works at the site now centre on backfilling of voids to approximate original ground level, topsoiling and seeding, tailings storage facility (TSF) monitoring and Spekboom (Elephant Bush) trial planting. The TSF is adjacent to the former mine township, which has now reverted to a “normalised” municipal town.
Tweefontein is an operational thermal coal producer, one of three Glencore mine complexes in a clustered area in west Mpumalanga province. Like other RSA coal mines, Tweefontein is required to backfill voids to original ground level. The rate of progressive rehabilitation at the mine is similar to the average rate in Queensland’s metallurgical and thermal coal sectors of 24%, but below Glencore’s Queensland rate (close to 50%). The Tweefontein team are focused on accelerating the progressive rehabilitation as land becomes available.
Mine Closure 2025 focused on the challenges facing RSA, many of which would be familiar to Australian professionals. Like Queensland and much of Australia, no complex mine has ever received a “closure certificate” and the unlikely prospect of formal government sign off remained a permeating theme of the conference. Legacy mines, referred to as derelict and ownerless mines, were also a concern, as the long history of mining in RSA, especially in the gold-rich areas surrounding Johannesburg has left unfunded liabilities, again not dissimilar to the Australian experience.
In a nation 500,000 square kilometres smaller than Queensland alone, with a population of over 60 million, mining provides significant benefits for resource communities. It also places extraordinary pressure on mining companies to support those communities in which they operate. Unlike Australia, artisanal and illegal mining combine with these community pressures to make mine closure in RSA even more challenging than here in Australia.
Delegates to the conference also grappled with financial assurance and how best to manage future liabilities. Bonds held in ‘trusts’ attach to the company and not the asset, and thus are no longer available when an asset is on sold. Delegates also observed sales of RSA mines to potentially weaker/riskier entities, a trend observed in the Australian context as well.
Site visits and attendance at the conference gave insights into the challenges of progressive rehabilitation and mine closure in South Africa. Many of the technical challenges are similar to those faced by Australian mining operators; acid drainage, rehabilitation backlogs, weed management, soil quality. In addition, South Africa’s miners have large, often poor populations adjacent and reliant on mining for economic opportunities, and grapple with the challenges of illegal access and resource extraction.
Several speakers referred to the ‘wicked problem’ of mine rehabilitation and closure, a theme I pursue in my studies through UQ and CRC TiME. Better managing these wicked problems relies on multifaceted approaches that recognise the social-ecological systems in which mines operate, as well as the need for strong governance to protect the interests of the wider community. My sincere thanks to UQ, CRC TiME, Seriti, Glencore and WSP South Africa for support.
Written by James Purtill, Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner, Office of the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner.
