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The purpose of the study is to develop a project health check model to evaluate the status of projects within the coal mining industry. The model will be based on the Buttrick (2000) project health check model as described in his book “The Interactive Project Workout”. The model assesses the current “health” or status of a project. It looks at the full project environment and uses a set of question results in an assessment of the overall risk associated with the project. The model evaluates seven key project success factors which include: 1. Project Plan 5. Expertise 2. Resources 6. Clear Specification 3. Ownership 7. Top Level Support 4. Justifiable Case The model fulfils two roles: • As a checklist, and • As a tool to indicate where a project manager’s efforts should be directed. This study will give an overview of the coal mining industry and the way projects are being evaluated and prioritised. The Buttrick (2000) project health check model will be assessed and adapted to evaluate projects within the coal mining industry. The “new / adapted” model will be applied to the Douglas / Middelburg Optimisation (DMO) to evaluate the health status of the project which is currently at the end of definition (feasibility) stage within BHP Billiton Energy Coal South Africa. The results obtained from the new health check model showed that the DMO project was in a healthy state with a project health check score of 47.33. It could 4 thus be concluded that the DMO project is ready to move in to the execution phase of the BHP Billiton capital investment process. The results obtained from the project team member participants were split into management perception and team members’ perception. The overall health of the DMO project between the two parties gave similar results with the team members score of 43.76 being slightly lower than the management health score of 45.42. The only major difference was observed on the “Communication” project evaluation criteria where the management perspective on the communication effectiveness was higher than that of the project team members.

This research is addressing the causes and effects of project delays in the coal mining industry in South Africa. A literature review was conducted and it was found that the causes of delays are extensively researched in the construction industry with only limited reference to delays in the mining industry which are mainly risk based. The effects of delays are predominantly listed as timing and cost effects.

Crosshole seismic techniques can be used to gain a large amount of information about the properties of the rock mass between two or more boreholes. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with two crosshole seismic processing techniques and their application to real data. The first part of this thesis describes the application of traveltime and amplitude tomographic processing in the monitoring of a simulated EOR project. Two physical models were made, designed to simulate 'pre-flood' and 'post-flood' stages in an EOR project. The results of the tomography work indicate that it is beneficial to perform amplitude tomographic processing of cross-well data, as a complement to traveltime inversion, because of the different response of velocity and absorption to changes in liquid/gas saturations for real reservoir rocks. The velocity tomograms image the flood zone quite accurately. Amplitude tomography shows the flood zone as an area of higher absorption but does not image its boundaries as precisely, because multi-pathing and diffraction effects are not accounted for by the ray-based techniques used. Part two is concerned with the crosshole seismic reflection technique, using data acquired from a site in northern England. The processing of these data is complex and includes deconvolution, wavefield separation and migration to a depth section. The two surveys fail to pin-point accurately the position of a large fault; the disappointing results, compared to earlier work in Yorkshire, are attributed to poorer generation of compressional body waves in harder Coal Measures strata. The final part of this thesis describes the results from a pilot seismic reflection test over the Tertiary igneous centre on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The results indicate that the base of a large granite body consists of interlayered granites and basic rocks between 2.1 and 2.4km below mean sea level.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This research is addressing the causes and effects of project delays in the coal mining industry in South Africa. A literature review was conducted and it was found that the causes of delays are extensively researched in the construction industry with only limited reference to delays in the mining industry which are mainly risk based. The effects of delays are predominantly listed as timing and cost effects.