Modern Mining August 2018

COVER STORY

to deliver the plant and are work- ing in consortium with two partners, KC Cottrell of Korea and the ELB Educational Trust. This is a very sig- nificant contract for us as we believe this project will become a reference biomass plant for Africa.” Another important recent award to ELB is a contract for the design, sup- ply, installation and commissioning of two mobile ship loaders – equipped with 58 m telescopic booms – at Transnet Port Terminals (TPT)’s Saldanha terminal. The ship loaders come complete with a mobile truck loader with a capacity of 1 000 t/h

across both Handymax and Panamax bulk car- rier vessels. The project follows ELB’s recent successful refurbishment of a tippler at TPT’s Port Elizabeth Terminal. Its technical partner on the Saldanha contract is Telestack of Northern Ireland, widely acknowledged as a leader in the design and supply of mobile materials handling equipment. In the marine field, ELB has been awarded a contract to install a drying system for De Beers Marine’s Grand Banks alluvial diamond concentrate exploration vessel, which is being upgraded in Cape Town harbour. ELB’s scope of work includes the design, manufacture, factory testing, delivery and commissioning of a pneu- matic Drycon drying system rated at 1,5 t/h. Among projects that have recently been completed by ELB are a Rapid Train Loading Station (RTLS) for the Nchwaning mine, part of Assmang’s Black Rock Mine Operations (BRMO) in the Kalahari Manganese Field of the Northern Cape (BRMO is operated by Assmang Proprietary Limited, which is jointly owned by African Rainbow Minerals Limited and Assore Limited); a sack tipping unit – complete with an integrated filter system – for Unilever Nigeria; and a clinker loading upgrade project at PPC’s Colleen Bawn factory, 160 km south of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. The acceptance criteria for the new load- ing system at Colleen Bawn included being able to load a 30-rack train within six hours. This was achieved even though site restrictions increased the shunting time by only allowing eight wagons to be loaded in a single run. ELB’s current order book and its recently completed contracts give an indication of the diverse nature of the company’s offering and also its geographical diversification. “One of our strengths is that we’re engaged in so many different fields including materials handling, process plant design and power supply over a

ash at rates varying from 80 t/h to 2 100 t/h. The project also incorporates an emergency ash dis- posal facility inclusive of a 2 000 t/h stacker and a 500 t/h scraper reclaimer. With Gamsberg and Medupi now in their final phases, the interesting question is howwill ELB replace them, given the dearth of new proj- ects in the mining space. “There’s no question that conditions are tight and we’re not expecting any real uplift in mining activity – particularly in South Africa – for around two years,” says Meijers. “Despite this, ELB currently has a sound order book and we have enough projects on hand to carry us through 2019. We’re also, of course, making a determined effort to acquire new projects and are pursuing a number of opportunities, including a single flight conveyor of over 30 km in length.” One overland conveyor project that has already been secured by ELB is the 27,1 km long overland conveyor forming part of the Project 5 Million Expansion at the Asanko Gold Mine in Ghana. ELB has already com- pleted the FEED phase for the conveyor and is the nominated contractor for the construc- tion phase, once it is approved. The conveyor will have a 7 Mt/a capacity and will link the existing Asanko processing plant with Asanko Gold’s new Esaase mine. An interesting new power project that ELB has just started on is a 25 MW biomass plant for Ngodwana Energy at Sappi’s Ngodwana mill in Mpumalanga. Forming part of the South African government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) Programme, the facility – which will take 27 months to construct and commission – will use waste material from the surrounding plantations to generate power. It requires a high-efficiency air pollution control system to ensure that emissions are well below the new South African requirements. Says Meijers: “We have an EPC contract

ELB has won a contract to supply two mobile ship loaders to Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) for its Saldanha terminal.

“Digitalisation is affecting every industry, including mining,

and we need to have a full competence in

this key area if we are to thrive in the years ahead.”

20  MODERN MINING  August 2018