Modern Mining March 2015

SURFACE MINING CONTRACTING

a highly competitive market

and in February 2012 succeeded Brian Wilmot (who moved on to become head of Aveng Mining) as MD of the company, by then known as Aveng Moolmans. According to White, an interesting fea- ture of Aveng Moolmans’ current workload is that almost two-thirds of it is in South Africa. “We’re down to about 35 % of our turnover coming from outside our borders, which is a complete reversal from two or three years ago when cross-border work accounted for about 70 %,” he says. “This change is not by intent and we intend restoring our footprint around Africa but at the moment it’s a case of fishing where the fish are – and that’s South Africa.” Aveng Moolmans now only has one con- tract in the West African region compared to three several years ago. “This is at Sadiola in Mali where we’ve been continuously working since the mine was established in the mid-90s,” notes White. “I suppose the problem we’ve had in West Africa is that we were over-exposed to a single client and to a single commodity, gold. We’ve always been aware of this and we have tried to diversify in the region. For example, about 18 months ago we targeted the

has 15 to 20 % of its fleet standing. “We’re not unique in this – all our competitors have the same problem. In fact, one of the larger equip- ment suppliers has told us that around a third of the global surface mining fleet is currently parked so we’re probably doing better than most. Obviously, in this situation we have no immediate plans to invest in new kit – although we wouldn’t shy away from new invest- ment should the right opportunities present themselves.” White, who describes himself as “a civil engineer with an identity crisis”, started his career as a civil engineering student with what was then LTA in 1982 but soon transferred over to Moolmans (which by then was part of the LTA Group). “Moolmans was still at that stage mainly a roads and earthworks contractor but it was already starting to move into mining,” he recalls. “So I ended up as a civil engineer work- ing mainly in the mining field.” Since those early days, White has worked for Moolmans all over Africa and in 1997 became GM of Moolmans’ West African operation, which saw him relocating to Accra in Ghana. He has been an Executive Director of Moolmans since 1999

Tati Nickel’s Phoenix open- pit mine near Francistown in Botswana, where Aveng Moolmans has been work- ing since 2002.

feature

March 2015  MODERN MINING  39