South African miners are battling a growing threat miles underground in the world’s deepest platinum shafts: Gangs stealing copper cables and disrupting operations.
Enticed by high copper prices, thieves are sneaking in, descending deep underground and setting up camp among vast networks of tunnels to strip metal from power cables. The country’s platinum giants are struggling to contain the syndicates of trespassers known as “zama zamas” — a Zulu name that means “take a chance.”
The thefts have become increasingly lucrative with copper recently hitting a record high on expectations that supply will remain tight and mining companies finding it hard to keep the gangs out. “Every single day there is at least one place that’s not working because of cable theft,” said Mark Munroe, head of Implats’s Rustenburg complex. “At our most marginal shafts, if cable theft is not stopped, we may be forced to shut mining operations because these marginal shafts will not be able to sustain themselves under these conditions.”
Roughly 500 people are illegally underground for as long as 60 days at any time at the sprawling Rustenburg site, Munroe said. It takes at least a week to reinstall some key copper cables and if the issue isn’t contained. The company had 120 theft incidents last year and recovered about 5.1 tons of stolen copper. So far this year, there have been 45 incidents and 3.2 tons recovered, with operations disrupted twice, according to Sibanye, which has stepped up security.
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