Modern Mining September 2015

COVER STORY

DRA diversifies into newmarkets

With the global commodities ‘supercycle’ now winding down as China’s growth rate slows, companies providing services to the mining industry are having to face a future in which the high levels of mining activity of the past decade are unlikely to be seen again – at least in the short to medium term. DRA, one of South Africa’s leading en- gineering and project management groups, is busy adapting to the ‘new normal’ by – amongst other strategies – expanding the range of markets it targets to reduce its dependence on mining, as Johann de Bruin, a Director of the company, recently explained to Modern Mining .

D e Bruin stresses that min- ing will remain DRA’s core market providing the bulk of its turnover and rev- enue but says the group needs to continue diversifying as min- ing activity reduces around the globe. “If we rely purely on mining, there is little chance that we can continue to grow as vigorously as we have in recent years,” he says. “So at the moment we are pushing into markets such as water, energy and infrastructure, even agriculture and general industry. The skills we have are easily deployed to these sectors. We’ve had one company ask us recently why we can’t de- sign and build a grease plant for them and the answer is that there’s no reason in the world why not. After all, a facility of this type is not

too different from a minerals processing plant. “As regards infrastructure, we’ve already been doing work of this type in the mining field for years – in fact, around R3 billion’s worth over the past decade alone. Our strategy now will be to take this infrastructural expertise and apply it more widely. We’ve put a great deal of effort into understanding the infrastructure space and our conclusion is that the challenges are not so much technical in nature – it’s easy enough to build projects of this type – but rather relate to issues such as financing and the legal and contractual arrangements adopted for project execution and operation. So we’ve been talking to players around the world, including funding agencies and equipment suppliers, to develop what we believe is a very compelling infrastructure offering.” In the water field, DRA intends pursuing an

DRA’s Johann de Bruin.

DRA is the EPCM contractor for phase one of the Asanko gold mine of Asanko Gold Inc, presently under construction in Ghana. Phase 1 will be a low cost, long life mine producing 190 000 ounces of gold per annum at steady state, with – according to Asanko Gold – the first gold pour on track for Q1 2016 (photo: Asanko Gold).

18  MODERN MINING  September 2015