Modern Mining November 2015

CONSULTANTS/ PROJECT HOUSES

ones that used to exist have now been acquired by bigger groups.” Pooley points out that due to the dearth of work in the mining sector, some of the big project houses and consulting firms are increas- ingly intruding into Bara’s market space. “The problem here, at least from a client’s perspec- tive, is that these big organisations simply can’t match Bara on price as they’re carrying too many overheads. Also, big groups tend to keep their ‘A’ teams for big blue chip clients. Smaller clients will simply not receive the same close attention.” While Bara in South Africa is the bigger part of Bara Consulting, the UK office – established in late 2013 – has also enjoyed considerable success. Says Willis: “We’ve built up a client base which primarily consists of exploration and mining companies listed on London’s AIM. In practice, many of the projects we’ve worked on have been in central and eastern European countries, including Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Bosnia. Interestingly, though, one of our current projects is the fea- sibility study for a gold project in Scotland. If the project is developed, it would rank – as far as I know – as Scotland’s first ever gold mine.” He adds that Bara in the UK and in South Africa – there is a common shareholding across the two companies – are able to share resources seamlessly. “With the South African company having by far the bigger personnel complement, it’s normally the case that they assist the UK office rather than the other way around. This, in fact, is one of our competitive advantages as the use of South African consultants is extremely economic for international clients in view of the weakness of the rand.” Prior to the formation of Bara, both Pooley and Willis worked at South African mining consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV (which started life as Turgis Consulting), with Pooley having been there for 13 years by the time he left (he ran the operation as GM) and Willis for 10 years. Both are mining engineers and both originally emigrated from the UK to South Africa, Willis in the 1970s and Pooley in the mid-90s. Willis worked continuously in South Africa through to 2011, when he returned to the UK. Apart from them, the other partners in Bara are Clive Brown, Dick Watts and Maurice Boustead. The work carried out by Bara is exactly what one would expect from a mining consultancy, with its capabilities including studies, due dil- igence reviews, CPRs, operational assistance, mine design and layout, geotechnical engi- neering, ventilation and cooling engineering,

Patrick Willis (left) and Jim Pooley pictured at Bara’s Johannesburg offices.

Jim Pooley (centre) on site at the Bisie tin project located in the DRC’s North Kivu Province. With him are Jamie Anderson (Exploration Manager for project owner, Alphamin Resources) and Mark Presbury (Sales Consultant, Capital Africa).

mine services infrastructure engineering, and (to a limited extent) process plant engineering. Pooley stresses that Bara’s expertise cov- ers both underground and open-pit mining, with its current workload split fairly evenly between the two. The consultancy is expert in the use of indus- try-standard software, notably Deswik.CAD

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November 2015  MODERN MINING  37