Modern Mining June 2019

COVER STORY

needs of their projects and, in fact, we welcome challenges of this type.” He adds that the Northern Cape is home to one of the high- est concentrations of Osborn equipment anywhere in the world, with its machines being deployed on many of the iron ore, manganese and diamond mines in the region. A notable recent order was for Sebilo Resources’ new manganese mine near Hotazel which saw the company supplying an Osborn Telsmith vibrating feeder, an Osborn Telsmith 25 x 40 jaw crusher, an Osborn modular Telsmith 38 SBS Gyrasphere crusher and an Osborn modular 16 x 20 double-deck screen. The

small. “All suppliers, of course, will tell you that their support is excellent but we really do believe we are different. We are committed to ensuring that we meet our customers’ expec- tations on time, every time, and it is our firm conviction that this is one of the factors that has enabled us to operate so successfully for 100 years.” Discussing market conditions, Goosen says the mining sector continues to be constrained in Southern Africa. “Essentially, everyone is fighting to maintain or increase their share of a cake that is not really growing in terms of size. We believe we’re doing well given the circum- stances. We’re profitable and our market share is increasing. Our geographical spread has certainly helped us and our intention is to con- tinuing growing our international business,” he states. He adds that being part of an inter- national group such as Astec Industries, which has regional sales offices around the world, will facilitate Osborn’s international expansion. Finally, Goosen reveals that Osborn, appro- priately in its centennial year, is on its way to concluding an empowerment deal that will see it becoming a Level 4 B-BBEE supplier. “We’ve been working on this for a considerable amount of time as we want to get everything right. Our objective is to comply not just with the letter but also the spirit of the Mining Charter. We are nearly there and we should be in a position to make an announcement shortly. We’re very excited by this transformational development which will help secure our future as we enter our next hundred years as one of South Africa’s pre-eminent suppliers to the mining and quar- rying industries, both locally and globally.” 

Osborn machines are employed in a new fixed plant designed by Johannesburg-based process engineers MET63 on behalf of Sebilo. Surajlall makes the point that the high performance characteristics of the Osborn machines can often lead to substantial savings for clients. “In one of the CSI countries, we’ve supplied one of our double toggle jaw crushers to a chrome operation. It replaces two single toggle jaw crushers from another supplier and has allowed a significant improvement in throughput.” Goosen stresses that Osborn is constantly renewing and upgrading its equipment and says there are currently some exciting new products in the pipeline, although he declines to go into specifics at this stage. “The focus with the new equipment will be on safety and ease of maintenance and also – and perhaps even more importantly – on the ability to interface with the increasingly sophisticated information and control systems found on mines and quarries,” he observes. “If you look at countries such as the US, you can see that – to take one example – entire quar- ries are being controlled by just two or three people. To fit into this type of automated envi- ronment, equipment needs to have a degree of ‘intelligence’ and we are working – in collabo- ration with our customers, who are providing input – to make sure that our products measure up in this respect.” A high-level of aftermarket support remains a key element of Osborn’s business philoso- phy, with Goosen stressing that the company delivers the same individual attention and personalised service to every customer, big or

Osborn’s modern manufacturing facility in Elandsfontein.

“All suppliers, of course, will tell you that

their support is excellent but we really do believe we are different.”

June 2019  MODERN MINING  21