Modern Mining May 2017

CRUSHING, SCREENING AND MILLING

crushing and screening solutions

for the equipment upfront. The capital value of the plant is built into the rate-per-tonne that is charged and B&E International runs the plant for an agreed period while the capital portion is steadily paid off. “The advantage for the customer lies not only in having us carry some of the start-up cost, but in also having the assurance that the plant will function effectively as a vital part of the production process,” he says. “Ownership can then revert to the mine after the capital is repaid through this toll fee. The customer can even decide to buy out the residual value of the plant at an earlier stage if their cash flow is good and they are confident of their own in- house expertise.” Word-of-mouth is traditionally where B&E International’s business comes from, as its cus- tomers move between different commodities and mining companies; most of its work is cur- rently in diamonds, copper, coal and gold. “It’s all about partnership really,” Janse van Rensburg says. “For instance, we started a con- tract with one of our diamond customers in 1993, and we are still in partnership with them. On the coal side, we were called in by one of our early customers for a six-month contract, and we are still there many years later.”

The usual scale on which B&E International conducts mining is up to about 500 000 tonnes per month, and it also engages in the develop- ment phase of projects by doing the stripping and mine preparation. “On a copper mine, we can build the heap leach pad and manage that, and then the mine takes over when the material enters the metal- lurgical stages and the final recovery of copper,” he says. With its mining work mostly in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, B&E International is also exploring opportunities in countries such as the DRC and Sierra Leone. The company’s familiarity with moving crushing plants around the continent comes mainly from its previous crushing contracts in various African countries including Uganda, Tanzania and Mali. 

Top: A jaw crusher designed, manufactured and installed on a coal mine by B&E International. Above: Erection of a plant designed and manufactured by B&E International. Above left: A B&E Interna- tional crushing plant on a copper operation.

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May 2017  MODERN MINING  33