Modern Mining June 2019

COVER STORY

Osborn celebrates its centennial

There are only a handful of companies supplying Africa’s mining industry that can boast of having a 100-year history behind them. One of this select few is Johannesburg-based Osborn, founded in 1919 as Samuel Osborn SA. To learn more about the company, including its achievements and current strategy, Modern Mining recently spoke to Managing Director Johan Goosen and Director of Sales & Marketing Vinesh Surajlall.

A lthough it was originally estab- lished as a subsidiary of a Brit- ish steel company and is today part of US-based Astec Indus- tries, Osborn is a thoroughly South African enterprise, both in its people and its products. The company operates from premises in Elandsfontein which it originally moved into in 1979 and which have since been substantially expanded, with the original small fabrication shop on site having grown tenfold into a large, modern manufacturing facility able to produce equipment which can hold its own with the best available internationally.

Johan Goosen, Osborn’s Managing Director, and Vinesh Surajlall, Director of Sales & Marketing. While Osborn has access to all the equip- ment designed and manufactured by its sister companies within the Astec Industries group, notably Telsmith, KPI-JCI and BTI Breaker Technology, all based in the US or Canada, most of the products it markets have been designed in-house and are manufactured at the Elandsfontein factory. “The simple fact is that South African rocks and ores are very different

View of an Osborn primary crusher installation.

18  MODERN MINING  June 2019