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Pay Dirt is a trade publication about how surface mining operations run and what they cost. It is written for mining contractors in Southern Africa and the people who run them.
The operations desk for surface mining.
Who it is for
Pay Dirt is for owner-led surface mining contractors: load and haul, drill and blast, crushing and plant hire. It is written for the owners and managing directors of those businesses, for mine and site managers, workshop and plant managers, contract leads and foremen.
Each piece answers a question these readers deal with on site or at month-end. We explain the method with a worked example in tonnes, hours, litres and rand, and link to the primary source behind every figure.
The seven sections
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Contractor economics | Cost per tonne, rates, contracts, standing time and month-end |
| Fuel and diesel | The monthly diesel price, the diesel refund, fuel use and fuel losses |
| Load, haul and blast | Cycle times, payload, haul roads, match factor, tyres and blasting |
| Maintenance and machines | Availability, utilisation, MTBF, MTTR, job cards and hour meters |
| Safety and compliance | The Mine Health and Safety Act, pre-start checks, fatigue and collision avoidance |
| Southern African mining | Commodity briefings, country briefings, events and the contractor directory |
| Technology and data | Telematics, field records, AI in mining and what the data can and cannot tell you |
The team
Pay Dirt is written by the Pay Dirt editors. Every piece is fact-checked against its sources and approved by a named editor before it is published. Our editorial standards set out how we source, check, approve and correct our work.
The name
Pay Dirt was relaunched in 2026. It is not connected with the former Pay Dirt magazine of Bisbee, Arizona.
To reach the editors, report an error or ask about a correction, see the contact page.