Modern Mining March 2015

SURFACE MINING CONTRACTING

that assesses the client profile and the project profile. If these are right, then we’re not too concerned about the specific country. We have huge experience of Africa and are confident that we can work successfully anywhere on the continent.” He adds that Aveng Moolmans may in the future look beyond Africa. “I think it would be a natural evolution for us to take the business beyond Africa within, say, the next five years. The areas we are most likely to target are the Middle East, South America and the CIS region of Central Asia.” Discussing Aveng Moolmans’ strategy in Africa, White emphasises that the company does not have the normal contracting mindset. “Most open-pit mining contractors will move into a country and then move out again as soon as their contract is finished,” he explains. “By contrast, we commit to a country. Our goal is to build a sustainable business and we back our- selves that we’ll extend the business beyond the normal three or five years for which most contracts run. We believe this is the only way to operate successfully in Africa. We also local- ise our operations. When we start a contract our rule is that up to 10 % of the workforce might be brought in from South Africa to get things established. But it’s also our rule to bring this figure to below 5 % as soon as possible. In the case of our Langer Heinrich operation in Namibia, the entire workforce, including senior management, is 100 % Namibian.” On the subject of safety, White says Aveng Moolmans has many achievements under its belt and that its record compares favourably with its peers. “Having said this, we still have our blemishes and this is not acceptable,” he observes. “We have all the right systems and processes in place but the challenge is to make safety awareness a part of our DNA. We work at this constantly and we’ve made very significant progress over the years but we can’t let up – ensuring high safety standards is an on-going process that can never be relaxed. It will con- tinue to be top of our agenda for as long as we operate.” Very close to safety in importance is training and Aveng Moolmans believes that it has world class systems and programmes in place, which are MQA accredited in South Africa, and carry accreditation by local training authorities in certain of Aveng Moolmans’ other countries of operation. Says White: “I won’t go into all the details of our training initiatives, which could be tedious, but suffice it to say that one of the keys to contracting success is to have high qual- ity operators backed by first-rate technicians and mechanics. We can take someone who has

never before so much as seen a big mining truck and turn him – or, increasingly, her – into an operator in 240 hours. Many of our sites, inci- dentally, have sophisticated mining equipment simulators and our goal is to have these on all our contracts.” Finally, what of the prognosis for mining? “The short answer is that no one really knows,” White responds. “Around 18 months ago, we were predicting an uptick in late 2015 going on 2016, and we’ve now put that back a year. But no downturn lasts forever. In the meantime the task of Aveng Moolmans’ management team is to ensure that we’re in good shape when the upturn comes and ready to take advantage of all opportunities and this – as I’ve said – is pre- cisely what we’re doing.” Photos courtesy of Aveng Moolmans

One of Aveng Moolmans’ Cat 789D mining trucks. These 181 tonne (200 ton) payload machines are the biggest trucks that the company operates.

Moolmans and Shafts & Underground to merge As this article was being written, Aveng was in the process of consolidating Aveng Moolmans and Aveng Mining Shafts & Underground. “These two business units were clustered together under the Aveng Mining banner in 2012, the rationale being that they were both involved in mining con- tracting,”explainsWhite.“A full integration of the two businesses, however, never took place and they each continued to carry their own overheads and operate more or less independently of each other. Aveng has now de- cided to fully merge the two entities, so that they share a common man- agement, operate under a single brand and share central services.” The combined entity will be a formidable player in mining contract- ing, with the two business units having contributed R6,5 billion in rev- enue (12 % of the total) to the Aveng Group’s overall revenue in the year to 30 June 2014. Of this R6,5 billion, Aveng Moolmans was responsible for R4,7 billion. The combined net operating earnings for the year were R529 million. White will act as MD of the new combined mining business unit. As of this writing, the name under which it will operate had not been finalised. 

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March 2015  MODERN MINING  41