20100720
reuters

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa said on Tuesday platinum producers needed to provide tangible plans on how to curb mine accidents after they protested over new safety directives introduced last week to help reduce fatalities.

The new regulation, which restricts how much ore can be extracted by some mechanised mining techniques, was imposed after an accident that killed five miners at Aquarius Platinum's Marikana mine earlier this month.

South Africa is the world's top platinum producer and a major chrome exporter but has a dire safety record compared with peers in the industrialised world, partly because it has some of the deepest mines. Last year, 165 miners died in its mines.

"The ball is in their court. They need to really come up with a convincing story that we are not going to have a similar incident again," Thabo Gazi, chief inspector of mines, told Reuters.

"It's a mine design problem in our view."

The directive concerns the bord and pillar mining method, in which material is mined horizontally, leaving support pillars of untouched material. All mechanised bord and pillar mines must reduce the width of the bord, the gap mined between the pillars, to six metres from 10 metres.

Gazi said collapse of ground, one of the leading causes of death in South African mines, was due not only to supporting struts but also to how the mines were actually set out.

Analysts said the regulations could impact the entire chrome and platinum group metals industry in South Africa, causing shares in Aquarius to plummet on Monday.

Gazi said mining companies, including Anglo Platinum and ferrochrome producer Xstrata, were asked to review their mining methods to improve safety.