Modern Mining May 2015

COMPANIES

design (FEED). “Essentially, our task will be to identify opportunities in Africa, develop relationships with clients and carry out the nec- essary study work on their projects,” he says. “Once a project is ready to move into the ‘Build’ phase, our global engineering, design and pro- curement capability will be deployed to take it through to commissioning and operation.” Sedgman’s South African office was estab- lished in 2008 by Steve van Barneveld to support two key execution contracts in the coal field that Sedgman had secured in Southern Africa. One of these was for the 800 t/h Benga CHPP near Tete in Mozambique while the other saw Sedgman handling the expansion of the CHPP at ATCOM East in South Africa. Another success for Sedgman South Africa was the award – in 2010 – of the contract to build the 3 Mt/a copper concentrator at Discovery Metals’ Boseto mine in Botswana. Boseto is currently on care and maintenance but the plant report- edly performed extremely efficiently during its roughly 30 months of operation. Last year, Sedgman also completed the DFS for Cupric Canyon’s Khoemacau copper mine, which is located close to Boseto. Van Barneveld, who is currently based in the Centurion office, says that one of the competi- tive edges that Sedgman has is its EPC (‘fixed price’) contract execution model. “We are able to work on an EPCM basis if that’s what the cli- ent wants but we prefer the EPC approach. We have a strong balance sheet so we can take on the risk. Moreover we’re confident in our abil- ity to deliver on time and within budget. Given the cost over-runs seen on many – probably most – mining projects in recent years, we’re

efficient use of group resources and reduces unnecessary duplication of skills and facili- ties, which in turn offers a better commercial proposition.” Berger, who was previously with Aurecon and Aveng E+PC, explains that the focus by Sedgman South Africa on the ‘Create’ phase of the development cycle means that it will primarily be engaged in general business development, project evaluation, concept and feasibility studies and front end engineering

Left: The 3 Mt/a copper concentrator at the Boseto mine, located in Botswana’s ‘Kalahari Copperbelt’. Below: Seen here (left to right) are Sedgman’s Danie Coetzee, Mark Berger, Steve van Barneveld and Kent van Twest (photo: Arthur Tassell).

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