Hotazel is a town located in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district in the Northern Cape. It is located 147km north of Posmasburg and 46km north-west of Kuruman and is home to 80% of the world’s manganese ore bodies, with several mines in the area dedicated to extracting this resource. Hotazel has been a mining town since the 1950s when manganese was first discovered there, while testing was being done to find underground water deposits. (www.south32.net)
Two of the major manganese mines in the area are owned and operated by South32 – Wessels and Mamatwan. The Wessels operation is underground and extracts high-grade manganese ore using a mechanised room and pillar method 300m below the surface, and has one vertical shaft and two incline shafts. Mamatwan, on the other hand, is open cast and uses shovel and truck mining methods to extract low-grade ore. Both mines have been in operation for over 50 years.
