African Fusion March 2017

AFRICAN FUSION

March 2017

Ongoing ESAB regional support

ast year, ESAB began channelling

the distribution of its welding

range in South Africa through

Colfax sister company, Howden Donkin.

“To further simplify the regional support

functions for the SADC region, ESAB has

done away with country managers and

decided to support its welding product

range directly using its three product

managers, with additional assistance

from Dubai,” begins Saunders.

“Between Brett, Eugene and I, who

are all directly employedby ESABMiddle

East and Africa, we will continue to

support the regional market, which is

predominantly in South Africa. For all

ESAB distributors and direct customers,

we will be responsible for product mar-

keting and service support,” he explains.

“We report to and are supported by

ESAB Middle East, with Howden Donkin

continuing to house us and to facilitate

the warehousing and distribution side,”

he says adding, “sonothing has changed

with respect to ESAB products being

available for distribution and support

across South Africa and into neigh-

bouring southern African countries,”

Saunders assures.

The consumables specialist

Processspecialist,BrettCameron,contin-

ues: “Regionally, we remain very strong

in submerged-arc welding, with the likes

of our ESAB OK Autrod 12.22 wire with

our OK10.72 flux being widely adopted.

“Our strength in submerged-arc

welding has led to us dominate thewind

tower manufacturing market in South

Africa and, although tower manufac-

turing has been stalled recently due to

delays in signing off the new REIPPPP

projects, we are seeing a significant pick

up in the Western Cape.”

One of ESAB’s bestselling weld-

ing consumable is the ESAB OK 55.00

manual stick-welding electrode. This is

a premium, high-quality, low hydrogen

and lowmoisture absorption (LMA) elec-

trode, particularly suitable for welding

high strength, low-alloy steels. It offers

good low-temperature impact strength

and is very resistant to hot cracking.

“On the GMAWprocess our OK Aristo

African Fusion

talks to ESAB’s regional product support team:

Keith Saunders, who is responsible for standard equipment,

automation and engineering; Brett Cameron, process special-

ist responsible for welding consumables and manual plasma

systems; and Eugene van Dyk for mechanised CNC Cutting

Systems, manual gas equipment, PPE and accessories.

Regionally, ESAB is strong in submerged-arc welding, with the likes of its ESAB OK

Autrod 12.22 wire and OK 10.62, OK 10.72 and OK 10.92 fluxes being widely adopted.

ESAB expands

regional support

Rod 12.50 is a flagship consumable. This

is a copper-freeMn-Si-alloyed solidwire

for general construction, automotive

components, pressure vessel fabrication

and shipbuilding,” Cameron says.

This wire incorporates ESAB’s Ad-

vanced Surface Characteristics (ASC)

technology, which enhances feeding

performance, reduces spatter levels and

increases efficiency, making it ideal for

robotic and mechanised welding. “OK

AristoRod12.50wire is routinely usedon

robot systems such as those at Transnet

in Bloemfontein, which uses the 250 kg

ESABMarathonPac™ to reduce handling

costs,” he adds.

“We now also offer a Tier 2 consum-

able range for those needing to squeeze

costs,” he continues. “These products,

although less expensive, are all manu-

factured in ESAB factories to comply

with all applicablewelding consumable

standards,” he assures. Most notably,