Capital Equipment News December 2020

MARKET REVIEW 2020

Pilot Crushtec’s Metso equipment working at a local mine.

Market review 2020: state of the industry and the way forward The year 2020 has been one of upheaval and uncertainty. We turn to Babcock and Pilot Crushtec to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have affected the local construction equipment, plant services, transport, as well as the crushing & screening sectors. By Mark Botha.

T he global economy entered a deep recession in 2020, with the world economy slowing down drasti- cally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With busi- nesses shut down to contain the virus, global equity markets posted their worst three-month decline since the Great Financial Crisis of 2007/2008, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Construction equipment, plant services and transport solutions company Babcock, and Pilot Crushtec International, a major player in the crushing and screening sector, share their takes on the state of the economy and on the way forward. The year 2020 The year 2020 will most certainly go down as one of the most challenging ever, not only in the South African economy, but in the global economic environment as well, says Pilot Crushtec sales and marketing director Francois Marais. “We have been fortunate enough to continue to trade, with stable activity levels, predominantly in the commodities markets.” He says aggregates, on the other hand, seem to have had a much deeper decline than commodities and the construction

and civils industry activity levels have not been as buoyant as experienced in the previous fiscal period. “A lack of private and government investment in infrastructure has affected our aggregate clients greatly. The construction market appears to have been one of the hardest- hit industries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.” David Vaughan, MD of Babcock’s equipment business, singles out the month of April as particularly difficult for the company, as well as for the majority of its customers, as the lockdown in South Africa came into effect. “The Babcock Group was designated an essential services provider and, as such, we were able to offer our customers ongoing service and back-up while adhering to the government-instituted regulations and protocols.” He notes that “most, if not all” mining operations remained open to some degree but that many other sectors were severely impacted. “A very slow recovery was evident from May onwards,” he says. Key trends in 2020 “We have certainly seen an increase in clients opting to repair equipment as opposed to replacing it, and a sharp increase in

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