Modern Mining August 2019

one example, we might have security and safety in mind, in which case we would look at the behaviour of people to see whether it is consis- tent with what we would expect. The applications are pretty much endless and we’ve only explored a few of them so far.” ELB Engineering has received its first order for the camera recognition technology from one of the bigger chromite producing/ recovery companies. “The order was secured after we built a demo unit to test the technology,” says Van den Heever. “The challenge was to use the technology to

analyse chrome fines on a shaking table by recog- nising characteristics such as particle size, particle shape and colour, and then using the intelligence gained to move the splitter arm to get the optimum separation between the waste and the chrome. The trial was very successful, increasing the yield in some cases by about 22 %.” Both the camera recognition and the Kymeta technology reside within ELB Intelligent Solutions, a company created around two years ago to ensure that ELB Engineering can offer the latest technolo- gies – including smart plants, drone systems and solutions based on the Internet of Things (IoT) – to its customer base. Looking at ELB Engineering’s current order book, Meijers says that the company’s power division is doing extremely well, with one of its flagship projects being the 25 MW Ngodwana Biomass Project, which is currently being erected at the Sappi Ngodwana Mill site, 40 km west of Nelspruit in Mpumalanga Province. The project is being executed on an EPC basis by the ELB-KCC Consortium which consists of ELB Engineering, KC Cottrell (KCC) of South Korea and the ELB Educational Trust and is already well into the construction phase, with the first concrete pour – for a section of the boiler building raft founda- tion – having recently taken place. “This is a big contract for us and is also a land- mark as it forms part of the government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme,” notes Meijers. ‘It is our first biomass project but there are other opportunities ahead. We see the provision of power and water as the African continent’s big- gest challenges and we intend being a player in the power sector. We are working on several initiatives which will see us extending our power offering, with our target market being projects of roughly up to about 50 MW of generating capacity.”

Another success for the power side of the ELB Engineering business has been a move into opera- tions and maintenance, which has seen the company assisting Eskom at its Medupi power station on Units 2 and 3. “In general, we’ve detected an erosion of maintenance skills in South Africa’s state-owned enterprises and this is opening a new market for us,” Meijers observes. “It’s very different to project work as it generates an annuity-type income but we see it becoming an increasingly important part of our business.” Summing up, Meijers says that ELB Engineering has had to adapt its business model to current market conditions. “The bottom line is that if we sit around waiting for traditional markets such as min- ing to revive we’re going to be in big trouble. We need to diversify and we need to embrace both the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly digi- talised world. We’ve managed to do this successfully so far, in the process transforming ELB Engineering into a more diversified company than it was just four or five years ago.” 

ELB Engineering is assisting Eskom at its Medupi power station on the maintenance of Units 2 and 3.

ELB Engineering moves into rail Not all of ELB Engineering’s fledgling businesses are directed at high- tech opportunities. The company has recently partnered with Elwatini Rail Consultants to establish ELB Elwatini Rail Solutions, which is directed at the very traditional field of rail engineering. ELB Elwatini Rail Solutions is a major- ity black-owned, Level 2 company that provides a range of services including rail condition monitoring, feasibility studies, railway engineering design, civil design, construction supervision and management, maintenance manage- ment, OHTE and railway signalling and telecommunication. “Rail engineering was something that was missing from our portfolio,” says Meijers. “With this new venture, we’ve filled the gap and are now able to offer a full pit-to-port capability to our customer base. It is still early days but the venture has already picked up its first contracts and we’re very confident that it’s going to be a success.” 

August 2019  MODERN MINING  19