Tweefontein Coal Mine

This article is part of the Global Coal Mine Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Download full dataset

Report an error

Sub-articles:

Global coal mines Coal mines in China Coal mines in India Coal mines in the United States Coal mines in Australia Coal mines in Russia Coal mines in Indonesia

Related-articles:

Largest coal mines in the world Coal mine impacts from Covid-19 Environmental issues of coal Coal mining Coal reserves Coal terminals

Tweefontein Coal Mine is an operating coal mine in Nkangala, Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Tweefontein Coal Mine	Nkangala, Mpumalanga, South Africa	-26.0383942, 29.1613318 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

Loading map...

{"type":"SATELLITE","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"600px","height":"500px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":16,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":-26.0383942,"lon":29.1613318,"icon":"","inlineLabel":"Operating Mine\n"}]}

Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	–	–

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
–	5.25	2023	Underground & Surface	Mixed	–	60*	750

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
144	2023	880	Witbank	Bituminous	Thermal	–

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Glencore South Africa	Glencore PLC [97.0%]	Switzerland, South Africa

Table 6: Historical production (unit: million tonnes per annum)

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
ROM	–	12	13	12	10	9	9

Note: The above section was automatically generated and is based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker April 2024 release and the September supplement.

Background

Tweefontein Complex is a group of operating surface and underground coal mines jointly owned by Glencore and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), near Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The complex includes the Tweefontein North and Tweefontein South mine sites, of which only the Tweefontein North branch is currently being mined. Tweefontein Complex is a group of operating surface and underground coal mines jointly owned by Glencore and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), near Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The complex includes the Tweefontein North and Tweefontein South mine sites, of which only the Tweefontein North branch is currently being mined. The Tweefontein mine began operating "at the turn of the last century." The operation, which is owned by Glencore, has two sites within it: Tweefontein North and Tweefontein South.

The Tweefontein North development includes five coal seams, with all except seam No. 3 contributing to the coal resources. The mining right for Tweefontein North expired on 27 March 2020, however, a renewal application was lodged in March 2020. Coal reserves at the mine can be extracted by both opencast truck-and-shovel or dragline, and underground bord-and-pillar mining methods, and are sufficient to support a mine life of 13 years (until 2034).

At Tweefontein South, which is contained in the iMpunzi new order mining right, mining rights expire on 28 March 2029, though no mining was conducted here since at least 2018. Coal Reserves for Tweefontein South are sufficient to support a mine life of 10 years.

In 2014, the Tweefontein Optimization Project was undertaken, which "delivered a low-cost, long-life brownfield expansion that elevated Tweefontein into a modern, predominantly opencast operation that mines the rich pillar reserves that were left behind in discontinued underground workings.

Since at least financial year 2018, coal production at Tweefontein has steadily declined.

• Operator: Glencore Operations South Africa
• Owners: Glencore (79.8%), African Rainbow Minerals (20.2%)
• Location: Municipality of Emalahleni, Nkangala District, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa
• GPS Coordinates: -26.0383942, 29.1613318 (exact)
• Status: Operating
• Production: 5.46 million tonnes per annum (2022)
• Total Resource: 938 Mt (2021)
• Mineable Reserves: 157 Mt (2021)
• Coal type: Bituminous (Thermal)
• Mine Size:
• Mine Type: Surface (open cut) & Underground (bord-and-pillar)
• Start Year:
• Source of Financing:

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of world coal mines, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Mine Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.