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Vele coal mine

mine in South Africa

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ16968863 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Vele Coal Mine is a coal mine located in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The majority of its shares are held by Coal Africa Limited (CoAL).

Objections

There were several objections to mining at this location, which as of 2016, are not fully resolved. This included a land claim, and protests from environmental, cultural, political and youth groups. A main concern is its proximity to the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area, a World Heritage Site.

Operation

The mine has coal reserves amounting to 721 million tonnes of coking coal, one of the largest coal reserves in Africa and the world. The mine produces around 14 million tonnes of coal per year. When fully operational three coal seams will be mined in opencast as well as underground operations.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vele coal mine” as mine in South Africa. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Vele, coal and mine can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as mine in South Africa. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16968863. Authority coordinates are -22.173, 29.680. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Vele coal mine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Vele coal mine primary sources, Vele coal mine archive and Vele research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vele coal mine”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Vele coal mine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.