Modern Mining January 2015

Materials Division

An asphalt plant on the N1 near Vanderbijlpark.

The Materials Division was formed mostly out of the acquisition of various other companies in keeping with the Raubex Group’s strategy of vertical integration. “Raubex essentially started out as a road construction company and then post-listing went on the acquisition trail in 2007 for companies in the mining, materials supply and engineering environment,” Tobie Wiese, Head of the Materials Division, says. “The engineering aspect services both the mining industry and process plant manufacturing, in-house and for the external market. One of the most important things about the Materials Division is that although it forms part of the vertical integration strategy of the Raubex Group, its main client base is external.” The companies that constitute the Materials Division only generate about 20% of their revenue from the Raubex Group. The Materials Division has also secured a substantial contract for the design, build and operation of a crushing and processing plant at the Tschudi copper mine in Namibia. “We are working for most of the major listed mining companies, including De Beers, Billiton, Kumba, Gold Fields, Sibanye and Pilanesberg Platinum,” Wiese says. “Hence we have got quite a diversified exposure. However, we do not own resources as such. We provide engineering, materials handling, processing, mining and beneficiation services. We gravitate towards the minerals processing side, where we have a lot of technical strength.” Wiese says the strength of the Materials Division lies not only in the technical and engineering skills of its member companies, but also in the highly competent and dedicated management team. The division employs about 4 300 people out of a total of 9 000 within the Raubex Group. This means that health and safety is high on the agenda. “Our target is to have a Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) of below one, and this year it is at 0.8. This is a major driver for us in the Materials Division,” Wiese says. The Materials Division has also embarked on a number of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, such as a school project in Namibia. Raumix Aggregates Raumix Aggregates, established 23 years ago exclusively to service the road construction arm of Raubex with aggregate and sand, now operates 12 quarries. “It is important for us that we service our external clients to their satisfaction on a competitive basis. I think the Materials Division has grown substantially since the listing, partly as a result of organic growth and partly as a result of acquisitions. Some of the latest acquisitions we have carried out are in commercial supply of aggregates. “We have just acquired a cluster of quarries in Gauteng, where we are carrying out sand mining operations as well as an aggregate and

gypsum operation in the North West province, through the acquisition of OMV Crushers. At this point in time we are also looking at acquisitions in Botswana in order to increase our geographic spread.” B&E International B&E International focuses on the design, build and operation of minerals process plants and brands itself as a ‘partner of choice’ for the mining and construction industries with its integrated crushing, mining and mineral processing solutions. While B&E International has been designing and manufacturing plants at its Port Elizabeth facilities since the 1990s on an in-house basis, it has now branched out, offering this to the market in general. “We believe there is a definite gap that we can fill in terms of purpose built plants and maintenance and operational plants for mine owners,” Wiese says. The company was established in 1972 as a drilling and blasting specialist in the Eastern Cape and soon diversified into the mobile crushing sector with its own mobile and static crushing division.

In 1993 it entered the mining services sector and diversified further into bulk mining, processing and mineral beneficiation. B&E International was acquired by the Raubex Group in 2008, completing its transformation into a strongly focused crushing, mining and mineral processing company. On the mobile crushing and screening side, the company operates various crushing plants ranging in size from about 50 tph

to 500 tph, and from single stage plants all the way up to massive five stage crushing plants. This gives B&E International the capability to produce a range of products from road stone to high quality manufactured concrete sand, base course, concrete aggregates, water bound Macadam, ballast and filter media. Comar Comar, a business that designs and manufactures asphalt plants, was acquired by B&E International in 2012. It started out as a small local manufacturer and has since expanded to supplying equipment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Tobie Wiese, Head of the Materials Division.